MTG Salvation

At long last

Are we never going to get a legit Urza planeswalker

The MAN himself. It was about time!

This is the pre-planeswalker/war of the brother's Urza.

That construct calls back to the history of how he impressed the king of (I think) Kjeldor in a contest of "strengh".

Kroog, actually. Impressed his daughter too.

Not exactly meta, but I can't help but think of how much fun a couple of Training Grounds would make this.

The legend himself appears, and lo, he did not disappoint.

Play this with paradox engine out and three untapped artifacts.

Urza ETB, creates your fifth artifact.

Tap five artifacts: add UUUUU. Activate Urza. If you hit a spell, cast it for free, untap engine, repeat.

It isn't fully game, because you whiff when you hit land, but it is pretty abusable.

That's a pretty cute combo, but anything involving having a four mana creature and a five mana artifact out is pretty balanced by modern standards.

I think Urza is definitely cool, but I can't see him being abused anywhere except at commander tables.

At long last. I recall Maro saying that they would have a hard time making an actual Urza card because Urza is supposed to be so powerful that it couldn't be reasonably captured in a card. And now it's 2019. And stuff is pushed. And we have Urza. And I love it.

Don't forget Serra; who's in this set.

Likely in regards to an Urza Planeswalker card, while this is him as Lord High Artificer of Kroog, before becoming a planeswalker. Really pre-mending walkers are all too powerful to make cards for, as they are basically shapeshifting gods, and yet we have Windgrace and Freylise, both of which are on level with Urza.

An excellent card design that I will be immediately employing in my Commander decks.

There could be some applications in Modern? He seems too slow to be meaningfully powerful, although there is Mox Amber and Sai, Master Thopterist to consider.

Hasn't Pia and Kiran Nalaar seen some Modern play in some Grixis deck? This thing puts a lot more power onto the board, just turn 3 off a signet or whatever and you've got some big boys and a turtle. Lots of raw stats for four mana. Don't ignore the other abilities, but the stats really push this one.

Don't. He's going to get banned in the next EDH banning.

I guess we can expect an Urza planeswalker in Modern Horizons 2 next year.

Our Lord and Savior

Insta EDH ban.

Honestly, I was a bit skeptical when I first read this response, though being banned is a pretty real possibility.

1. This card can produce a ton of mana very quickly (especially with token producers), which is a dangerous thing to have in the command zone. Unlike most mana producing commanders, however, this ability can be used the moment the card comes out (possibly negating the cost paid for him)

2. The second activated ability encourages players to shuffle their giant libraries several times per turn, actively gumming up gameplay.

3. The raw power of that second activated ability... and the fact that it only needs colorless mana... risks warping the game around this card. While Bribery and reanimation aren't concerns when this guy is in the command zone, this guy would still be a prime target whenever it appears in the 99 and the sort of copying/stealing shenanigans we saw with cards like Primeval Titan may still be present. The fact that this guy gives you a free body and turns your equipment and plain old artifacts into free mana rocks doesn't help things on that front, either.

4. The synergy that this card has with Static Orb and Winter Orb is frankly a little bit sickening.

To be clear, we have seen pretty crazy commanders in the past. The mono green Selvala ramps like mad and Arjun shuffles libraries like nobody's business, for example. When you mix all of these factors together into a single card, however... I could imagine a ban.

He's certainly powerful, but I highly doubt that he's worthy of an Insta ban for Commander. He doesn't attack the basic pillars of MTG like Leovold, Braids, and Erayo do and I don't think he's as egregiously powerful as Rofellos or Emrakul is in personally advancing or accelerating your own advantages in relation to your opponents.

If Urza gets banned, I would immediately question why Thrasios isn't. Thrasios is a similar card in power level and is ubiquitous in cEDH play; indeed, a majority of the established cEDH archetypes are Thrasios + Tymna variants. But he's still alive and kicking, as is Paradox Engine.

I'd ban it just to reduce shuffling.

Quote from ShankmasterShank »

Really pre-mending walkers are all too powerful to make cards for, as they are basically shapeshifting gods, and yet we have Windgrace and Freylise, both of which are on level with Urza.

And that's precisely why I really don't want to ever see an Urza Planeswalker card. They will have to massively cut his power which does not in any way do justice to his legacy. That, or they'll make it virtually impossible to cast like Progenitus or something.

Only justification I can make for Lord Windgrace and Freyalise is that their cards are from immediately after they failed to defeat Yawgmoth in Phyrexia and they're severely weakened at the time.