The next stage in a multi-set story is coming with Brother’s War, a time-traveling journey that brings back classic characters and a heavy Artifact theme.
Spoilers began today with several heavy hitters as previews continue throughout the weekend with several coming at Magic 30, the 30th-anniversary celebration that hosts the Magic World Championship.
A major figure in the narrative of Brother’s War is Teferi, the Planeswalker that can manipulate time. It’s rare to have a Standard without a Teferi around to frustrate players that hate playing against control and tempo archetypes. The new Teferi is a five-mana Blue Planeswalker that has a new way to gain loyalty counters.
Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim
- Mana value: 3UU
- Type: Legendary Planeswalker Teferi
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Starting loyalty: Four
- Passive ability: Whenever you draw a card, put a loyalty counter on Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim
- First ability: 0: Draw a card.
- Second ability: -2: Create a 2/2 Blue Spirit Creature token with vigilance and “Whenever you draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on that Creature.”
- Third ability: -12: Target opponent chooses a permanent they control and returns it to its owner’s hand. Then they shuffle each nonland permanent they control into its owner’s library.
Magic continues to deliver unique planeswalkers that aren’t generically powerful, but fit interesting deckbuilding niches. Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim has a new way to gain loyalty counters by drawing cards. The 0 ability lets its controller draw a card. This isn’t a great ability for five-mana, but in a mono-blue deck that’s already ahead on board, it’ll be sufficient.
The -2 is solid. This allows Teferi to protect itself with a 2/2 Creature that scales throughout the game when you draw a card. This card can get out of hand quickly in a Blue deck, with its critical mass of card draw effects.
Getting to the ultimate looks like a combo finish. Sure, it’s possible to reach 12 loyalty by drawing cards, but more often than not activating the -2 multiple times is great. This is where a huge card draw spell comes in handy. With something like Cosmic Epiphany in Standard to ultimate Teferi the turn he comes in.
Brother’s War releases digitally on Nov. 15 with a full tabletop release on Nov. 18.
