What Price Shandalar?

Note: The following story is based on the MtG comic Ice Age by Jeff Gomez and Rafael Kayanan, and published by Armada

Dominaria, the Ice Age. 2900 years after the Brothers War.

Leshrac Nightwalker hovered slightly above the surface of Dominaria's Null Moon, wisps of shadow trailing from his midnight black cloak. Four balls of corrupted fire orbited his bone-white hair, while the hair itself wavered like a pale flame, wisps of smoke even seeming to curl from his eyebrows. Apart from his leathery, grim face and hands, the planeswalker seemed barely human, composed entirely of contrasting light and shadow.

In front of him stood an ornate metallic structure. It looked suspiciously like a temple. Perhaps the old wizard has finally gone mad, thought Leshrac. But he did claim to finally have an answer to why their ability to planeswalk had been reduced to a mere twelve planes. Twelve planes, cut off from the rest of the multiverse. ‘The Shard of Twelve Worlds’ it had been named. Probably by Faralyn, mused Leshrac. Pretentious bastard. He glided inside.

It was not often that a Gathering was called. Leshrac immediately sensed the fivefold energies of Taysir, supposedly the most powerful planeswalker that ever lived. Not that he ever did anything useful with his vaunted power. He was as stuck here as the rest of them. He stood on a balcony, wearing his infamous purple turban. His lover, Kristina of the Woods, stood next to him, pale skinned and freckled, seeming to Leshrac like waves of tranquil green power. Leshrac frowned. She was stronger than last time they clashed…but no. Not her. There was second figure, winged, hovering in the shadows, emanating similar energy. But the green didn't quite manage to stifle her fiery core. She must be the upstart half-elven planeswalker, Freyalise. Hmm. She had…potential. Yes.

The Loremaster: The Goblin Tinker

At first the five commanderwalkers of Commander 2014 seem to be quite a mixed bag. Freyalise and Teferi had been around for most of Magic's history, bearing the affectionate title of 'oldwalker'. Nahiri and Ob Nixilis we knew of as much more recent creations, being introduced a few years ago in Zendikar's storyline. And Daretti was a completely new character.

But then, as stories were filled out, it turned out that these five had more in common with each other than initially thought. The imprisonment of the Eldrazi on Zendikar had taken place far, far earlier than we realised - at least a thousand years before the Brother's War - making Nahiri, if she still lived, significantly older than Freyalise and Teferi. Ob Nixilis is also rather ancient. By virtue of the fact that he must have fought Nahiri at sometime before she left Zendikar, he has to be an oldwalker as well.

Though we now have a lot of story involving the other four, we still know very little about Daretti. He is, of course, a goblin. He is from the High City of Paliano, on the plane of Fiora, the setting of the Conspiracy sets. He was a gifted artificer, employed at the Academy of Palino. Though he held high rank, many of the other artificers viewed him with disdain, possibly due to the fact that he was a sort of 'repurposer', building his cogwork contraptions out of scrap metal and broken artifacts.

The Loremaster: Teferi, Time Lord

Teferi of Zhalfir. Arguably the most powerful time wizard in the history of Magic, he probably disagreed with Urza more than any other planeswalker of the time. The central conflict between the two was that Urza was obsessed with destroying Phyrexia at any cost, while Teferi cared more about protecting people from Phyrexia than winning a possible future war.

Teferi has been a part of Magic for a very long time. He first appeared twenty years ago, during the Mirage block, already a fully fledged planeswalker. Mirage took place on the continent of Jamuura in Dominaria. Jamuura, consisting of Femeref, Suq'Ata and Teferi's homeland of Zhalfir, was Magic's version of Africa. Now Mirage block wasn't perfect. It did have some...shall we say...racial stereotyping in it. But it also had a very powerful good-aligned planeswalker who was not only black-skinned, but very African in tone. Which is pretty cool. Teferi was also a rather more sympathetic character than Urza, and genuinely cared about his homeland and people.

But if we are to start at the beginning, we must go forward a few sets to the Urza's Saga block, which takes place chronologically before Mirage.

The Loremaster: Ob Nixilis and Garruk Wildspeaker

Most of the original five planeswalker cards had their ups and downs in standard. There were times when they were really good, and times when they were terrible. Only Garruk Wildspeaker was consistant. Never amazing, but never bad, just always good. It says a lot that he is the only planeswalker ever reprinted in a Commander set.

Of course, he's not the only walker found in a Commander set. Commander 2014 feaured five new planeswalkers, specially designed for the format. But they messed up a bit with their announcement. Revealing Teferi without further comment created the expectation that it would be a whole cycle of pre-Time spiral walkers (known as 'Oldwalkers'). I certainly, was very excited at the possibility of Freyalise in green, and to a lesser extent, Leshrac for black.

The Loremaster: Freyalise, Phyrexia and the End of Time Itself

This is part two of a look at the life of Freyalise. Part one can be found here.

Last week, we left the story with Freyalise casting the World Spell to end Dominaria's Ice Age. We are not sure what Freyalise did for the next 1000 years, apart from the fact that she spent at least some of the time on Shandalar. This is mostly due to Wizards cancelling the comic book line so they could focus on the Weatherlight Saga. Prepare for lots of Urza in the spotlight.

Urza, obsessed with defeating Phyrexia, would spend the same thousand years on Dominaria concocting overly complicated plots involving time travel experiments, genetically engineering super soldiers, uniting Dominaria into a massive Coalition, and crafting a number of powerful artifacts that would eventually combine to form the Legacy Weapon.

Just before the Phyrexians invaded Dominaria, Urza seemed to remember that he was not the only planeswalker who cared about Dominaria, and set out to sway a number of them to his side. They would be called the Nine Titans. Besides Urza, the Titans included the panther warrior Lord Windgrace, Kristina of the Woods, Taysir and his daughter Daria, Freyalise and - of all people - Tevesh Szat. Teferi had been invited as well, but refused due to his numerous disagreements with Urza's methods.