This morning, Wizards of the Coast revealed that Magic’s next expansion, War of the Spark, will have 36 planeswalkers and that every pack will contain a planeswalker. The article also provided more detailed versions of the art for the stained glass planeswalkers from the War of the Spark trailer, but said that that art would not be used on the cards in the set.
Speculation about War of the Spark having more planeswalkers than normal has been simmering for a while but came to a head two weeks ago when Wizards released the official preview trailer for the set. The trailer showed a series of stained glass depictions of planeswalkers from throughout all of Magic’s planes on a tall Ravnican tower, followed by a chandelier of candles that went out one by one until only a single candle remained.
The trailer seemed to confirm that War of the Spark would in fact be Magic’s version of Infinity War, with many planeswalkers coming to Ravnica to fight in a final battle against Nicol Bolas. But would the planeswalkers we saw in the trailer be included in the set itself? And if they were, would they be true planeswalker cards—or do the candles going out represent those planeswalkers losing their sparks, leading to legendary creatures cards of the characters?
Today’s revelation would to settle the debate and confirm that the characters seen in the War of the Spark trailer will be appearing in the set as true planeswalkers. But Wizards has said that Standard can only truly support 10 or so planeswalkers at a time—so does this mean that the 36 planeswalkers in War of the Spark will be underpowered to compensate? Or, since Mark Rosewater maintains that planeswalkers have a very limited design space, will this be the last hurrah for planeswalkers in Standard and Wizards is sending the card type out in style?
We’ll likely have to wait to find out until War of the Spark’s preview season starts in April ahead of its official release on May 3, 2019.