It looks like todays news of upcoming Arena updates hints at reprints of Obstinate Baloth and Blasting Zone in the Brothers War, with these 2 cards getting special card style treatments. Blast Zone is already on the client from War of the Spark, but seems like it would fit the flavor of The Brothers’ War. Obstinate Baloth is not on Arena yet, but could be reprinted to help keep Liliana in check in Standard and Pioneer.
Update 17-10-2022: New art for, what is assumed to be, Gix uncovered. Gix was a Phyrexian Demon who manipulated both Urza and Mishra during their war. It is assumed he will get his own card in the Brothers War expansion set. According to Maro’s slip of the tongue on his Blogatog, Gix will be multicolored, probably either Dimir or Grixis.
Update 17-10-2022: At Mark Rosewater’s Unfinity panel, the Q&A session, he mentioned that The Brothers’ War would make an already-existing mechanic deciduous. Thanks to a recent update in Gatherer we now know the mechanic to become deciduous is Surveil. Surveil is a mechanic that lets you take a look at the top X cards of your library and then decide to either put any number of those cards back on top of your library or throw them into your graveyard.
With this mechanic becoming deciduous I doubt it will be one of the major mechanics in the set, however it will probably be substantial enough to warrant the change. Especially since the graveyard will already be playing a big role in this set with the Unearth mechanic.
Update 05-10-2022:More information has been unearthed about the Brothers War, namely that Unearth will be one of the returning mechanics for this set according to Marc Rosewater
Also, since I’m such a big fan of the Meld mechanic, here’s the 2nd set of cards from that set featuring that mechanic:
Update 01-10-2022: Well, what do you know the Mystical Archive leak from last month turns out to be real, as proven by yesterday’s reveal stream. The blueprint versions of cards will sometimes be done by the original artist, but at times by a different one. There will be 63 different cards, 1 per booster, both set and draft boosters.
Other things of note: Meld is back as a mechanic, with Mishra and Urza both having this ability.
Also, this will be the first standard set to include Universe Beyond cards inside regular boosters, set, draft, collector boosters each will have the chance to include a Transformers card featuring art from either G1 or the Shattered Glass timeline in which the Decepticons are the good guys and the Autobots the big baddies. Check out some of the preview cards here..
30-08-2022: A supposedly Mystical Archive version of a Mishra’s Bauble got leaked in a Facebook group. The card looks crumpled and torn in the picture, while also displaying edited art. The original art, made by Chippy, is edited to look like a blueprint version, while attributing the art to Zack Stella. To be honest, a bunch of red flags to made and I almost discarded this leak to be fake if it not were for some other cards also popping up from the same source…which, made me doubt..it might be real?
If this would be real, we just got a nice preview of how the mystical archives will look in The Brothers War. I’m quite underwhelmed here. The old frame…again. The Blueprint art…again, this time even going as far as editing existing art into the blueprint look.
Anyway, at least it received a new flavortext. The translation of which is:
“The secrets of my great uncle’s inheritance lie in the world it was forged: the oily wastes of Phyrexia.” – Jarsyl’s diary
Below you will find an archive of the rest of the leaks, among which also a card from the upcoming Warhammer 40k commander sets.
Also…a part of another Brothers War card surfaced. It’s called Myrel, Shield…something. I’m assuming it should be Shieldmaiden
