Magic travels back in time to the conflict that destroyed the world in The Brothers’ War

As the resident Magic: The Gathering fan in the office, I’ve been super excited to see where the story goes following the last set, Dominaria United. We’ve already seen the evil Phyrexians invade the world of Dominaria, and in an effort to save themselves, Magic’s biggest protagonists such as Teferi, Karn and more have travelled back in time to seek some answers. The result? They’ve gone back in time to the Brothers’ War.

If you’re not super familiar with the Brothers’ War, also known as the Antiquities War, it was basically one of the first real major conflicts that happened in Magic’s lore. It saw two brothers Urza and Mishra, battle it out following years of rivalry, which eventually shattered the plane of Dominaria after a war that saw huge titanic mechs, colossal dreadnaughts and magical warfare on the battlefield. Magic’s latest set, also called The Brothers’ War, essentially takes us back to 1994, when the game first explored the conflict in the second ever expansion of the game, Antiquities.

The Brothers’ War will feature 287 cards, and for a quick look at it, you can already head down to your local game store to find pre-release events happening where you can battle it out in pre-release games and take a look at all the new cards via draft booster packs. While you’re there, you can also have the chance to get one of two limited edition token collectables when you purchase at least RM450 worth of sealed products, namely a Construct or an Uzran Automaton token. These tokens are the first two of a three-part series of The Brothers’ War Battlefield Mural, which you can connect to the three tokens from the previous Dominaria United set.

On top of that, The Brothers’ War brings with it some new mechanics. As a set with a huge focus on artifacts, you’ll find Powerstones, a type of artifact tokens that can be tapped for mana to use on non-artifact spells. Prototype meanwhile lets you cast huge creatures for a lower alternate cost, though it brings with it some caveats namely a lower power and toughness too. Previous fan-favourite mechanics return too such as Meld and Unearth. And as always, this set also comes with a cycle of full-art basic lands that each showcase part of the story depicted in The Brothers’ War.

That’s not all though. Seeing as this is a set revolving around artifact creatures, The Brothers’ War is also the first mainline set to incorporate Universes Beyond. This means that when you’re cracking booster packs, you’ll also stand a chance to pull one of the various Transformers cards such as Optimus Prime or Megatron.

The Brothers’ War will officially launch this 18 November, and will be available as draft boosters, set boosters, collector boosters, Jumpstart boosters and in a bundle. You can also snag one of the two ready-to-play Commander decks, each built around Urza and Mishra respectively. Each deck also comes with a retro frame treatment, so all the cards will come with an old school feel to it as a homage to the original look and feel of Magic: the Gathering.