Before the Top 4 of the Mythic Invitational at PAX East, Wizards of the Coast hosted the War of the Spark panel where they debuted the War of the Spark Trailer, revealed a some story beats, and previewed cards from the upcoming set.
War of the Spark Trailer
The War of the Spark panel kicked of with, well, the War of the Spark trailer.
The trailer shows Liliana commanding her army of Eternals to attack Gideon under the watchful eye of Nicol Bolas. She then sees Dack Fayden killed be an Eternal, as well as a mother and her child crushed under a collapsed wall, and has a change of heart. Liliana turns back to Bolas with a look of defiance and commands the Eternals to attack him, instead. The trailer then closes Liliana flowing (and glowing) with powerful Magic as she and Bolas begin to fight each other.
Nicol Bolas’s Plan, Revealed
During the panel, Doug Beyer, senior creative designer at Wizards of the Coast, finally revealed Nicol Bolas’s master plan.
First, what we already knew: Bolas has built an Eternal Army on Amonkhet and had Tezzeret steal Rashmi’s Planar Bridge, which will be used to transport the Eternals to Ravnica. Bolas has also acquired the Immortal Sun from Ixalan, which can be used to prevent Planeswalkers from planeswalking. When taken together, it was clear that Bolas wanted to invade Ravnica and trap all of the Planeswalkers there.
But today, Beyer revealed the final piece of Bolas’s plan: after trapping all of the Planeswalkers on Ravnica, Bolas plans to use an ancient spell, the Elder Spell, to harvest all of those Planeswalkers’ sparks.
Additionally, art at PAX East seems to indicate that Bolas will be bringing the four dead Amonkhet gods with him.
War of the Spark Previews Begin
We already knew that there would be 36 Planeswalkers in War of the Spark, but today’s panel revealed that a 37th planeswalker would be the exclusive Buy-a-Box promo: Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge.
The 37 Planeswalkers in War of the Spark will come with one static ability and various plus and minus loyalty abilities. The three Mythic and 13 rare Planeswalkers will look similar to the Planeswalker cards we’ve seen before, featuring both plus and minus loyalty abilities. The 20 Uncommon Planeswalkers, on the other hand, appear to have only minus loyalty abilities.
Two mechanics were also revealed at the panel. The first was Proliferate, a returning mechanic that will help you put more counters on your Planeswalkers and remove counters from opposing Planeswalkers. The second was Amass, a new keyword that that reads, “Put X +1/+1 counter(s) on an Army you control. If you don’t control one, create a 0/0 black Zombie Army creature token first.”
The theme of the panel’s previews (which extended into the Top 4 of the Mythic Invitational and the convention floor) was Planeswalkers paired with cards featuring their actions or minions.
We also saw some key story cards, like the Interplanar Beacon that will draw all of the Planeswalkers to Ravnica, as well as the opening of the Planar Portal on Ravnica and the arrival of the Immortal Sun.
Finally, we have a group of unrelated cards:
