Magic: The Gathering's Urza might be the most powerful planeswalker in MTG history

With the upcoming Magic: The Gathering expansion The Brothers’ War coming in a few months, talk will of course be directed at the two brothers. Urza and Mishra are the reason The Brothers’ War expansion is even happening when it comes Magic: The Gathering lore. While Mishra is powerful in his own right, Urza’s planeswalker card has been revealed.

It’s going to take some serious work to get him into play, but there is a possibility of him being the most powerful planeswalker to date. This is, of course, an opinion, and there are players who will disagree. Some feel like it takes too much time to put him into play to make him worthwhile.

Others think he’s simply overwhelmingly powerful. I think he’s got a great deal of potential as a powerful planeswalker, especially with particular cards in the current meta of Magic: The Gathering.

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Urza, Planeswalker takes a lot of work into play, but may be worth it in Magic: The Gathering

To get Urza, Planeswalker out in Magic: The Gathering, you first need to have Urza, Lord Protector in play. He’s a Legendary Creature that makes your Artifact instant, and sorcery spells cost one less to play.

Urza, Lord Protector

• Mana Value: 1WU
• Type: Legendary Creature - Human Artificer
• Rarity: Mythic Rare
• Stats: 2 power, 4 toughness
• First Ability: Artifact, instant, and sorcery spells you cast cost 1 less to cast
• Second Ability: 7: If you own and control both Urza, Lord Protector, and an artifact named The Mightstone and Weakstone, exile them, then meld them into Urza, Planeswalker. Activate only as a Sorcery.

The next step is making sure you have the 5-cost artifact, The Mightstone and Weakstone in play. Each of the brothers owns one of these stones, but they come together for this card. When that artifact comes into play, you choose one of two abilities:

• Draw 2 cards
• Target creature gets -5/-5 until end of turn

You can also tap it for 2 colorless mana, which cannot be spent to cast non-artifact spells. It also melds with Urza, Lord Protector. When these two cards come together, they form Urza, Planeswalker.

Some players might not be familiar with Meld, though. It’s an old mechanic that is coming back for a couple of cards in Magic: The Gathering. With this, two cards meld into one, forming one terribly powerful card.

In this instance, it is Urza, Planeswalker. With a baseline loyalty of 7, it’s going to be incredibly easy to trigger his ultimate, if that’s the goal you have. What can he do, though?

Urza, Planeswalker

• Mana Value: n/a
• Type: Legendary Planeswalker - Urza
• Rarity: n/a
• Base Loyalty: 7
• Passive Ability: You may activate the loyalty abilities of Urza, Planeswalker, twice each turn, rather than only once
• First Loyalty Ability: +2: Artifact, instant, and sorcery spells you cast this turn cost 2 less to cast. You gain 2 life
• Second Loyalty Ability: +1: Draw two cards, then discard a card
• Third Loyalty Ability: 0: Create 2 1/1 colorless Soldier artifact creature tokens
• Fourth Loyalty Ability: -3: Exile target nonland permanent
• Fifth Loyalty Ability: -10: Artifacts and planeswalkers you control gain indestructible until the end of the turn. Destroy all non-land permanents.

This card is absolute madness. It can already use its abilities twice a turn and has such a wide variety of powers. Want your spells to be cheaper? No problem. Need attackers/blockers? No problem! In a bad spot? Exile something! You can easily use this to amass an army of Soldiers, make them indestructible, board wipe, and then swing for lethal.

On top of that, you have to consider the Magic: The Gathering card Urza Assembles the Titans. This Saga’s ultimate lets you activate the loyalty abilities of planeswalkers you control twice this turn. If these two stack, he can then use his powers four times in one turn.

Urza, Planeswalker is his own Magic: The Gathering win condition. He can spend time building up an army of artifact creatures that can block, clear the board on his own, and then attack with that army. This is, of course, not counting any potential ways you can buff your artifact creatures.

Sure, Urza, Planeswalker takes a great deal of work to put into play. With the right set-up, he should be able to drop into play around turn four, though. Admittedly, that takes a perfect start and setup. Even with that, he’s, in my estimation, an incredibly powerful planeswalker, and would be an excellent Commander for a number of deck types.