Urza's Saga | Magic: The Gathering | MTG Lore

I love your channel. Such great production value. Thank you so much for the great content.

What show or movie are those animated clips from??

It is like if you put Alexander the Great and Gandalf into one character.

Alexander of Macedon has really a really complicated legacy. Became king of Macedonia at age 20 after his father was assassinated, he went on to use the war machine his father built to destroy the Persian Empire in only three major battles over four years. He leveled cities, killed countless people in pursuit of glory and conquest, but he also encouraged multiculturalism, seeking to unite both the conquerors and the conquered as equal citizens of a cosmopolitan empire. Then, he died at age 32, leaving his empire to warring generals with his final words: "to the strongest." Today, many people both idolize and despise Alexander, a man worshipped as a god within his own lifetime and for centuries after his death. But few deny that he, indeed, did great and terrible things in his short life, just as Urza did, both as a human and as a planeswalker.

As for Gandalf, he was an immortal figure sent to Middle-Earth specifically to combat the great Enemy, Sauron, and his very presence inspired those around him to stand against darkness. Whether he planned it all out or made it up as he went along, Gandalf was key to Sauron's defeat, as much as Urza was to Yawgmoth's. And just as Gandalf left the world shortly after Sauron's demise, Urza's time was at an end with Yawgmoth's final defeat.

Urza is one of my favorite characters in fiction he is the perfect encapsulation of the phrase “The ends justify the means”, that being said Urza was a deeply flawed individual and made many morally grey choices. But I believe that the end of the day every terrible deed he felt forced to do he never forgot those actions and by the end it weighed very heavily on his soul. His main goal was vengeance on Phyrexia for his brother at 1st and then after his raid into Phyrexia, he made that a side goal and needed to defend his home, that admittedly he trashed. I don’t know about you all. When it comes to Earth and we were to face an alien threat like that of the Phyrexians, I would do the same stuff Urza did if it meant Earths survival.

Love your voice and the longer form videos.

Turning old school planeswalkers into cards was the death knell for MTG to me. The player is supposed to be on par with ancient planeswalkers - post time spiral planeswalker cards are fine.

The other artifact that is Urza's eyes isnt the Weakstone, it is rhe Meekstone, also Urza has his own spark, him and his brother mishra could only utilize the broken thran powercore because of their spark, then the brothers war happened and Dominaria was turned to glass. This was all covered in the artifact cycle.

So urza is a bad guy that’s all I got from this

Urza, following in yawgmoths eugenics footsteps.

Me: well considering the new sets are the brothers war and phyrexia all will be one... I figure that maybe... it's not over yet lol

Or is this just the cards / sets for the lore lmao

I don't blame Urza for what he did any more than I blame Ugin for dooming Zendikar. What do you do when the price of failure is everything?

Yawgmoth did nothing wrong

I’ve always held sympathy for Urza. A man who just wanted to invent thrust into a leadership that he did not ask for.

Urza befriending or acquainting with a Phyrexian is lowkey cool asf ! It reminds of for example the Predator cooperating with humans etc, even to it was due to a defect or what have you.

Urza’s story makes me speechless

Thanks for this. It's super useful for those of us who only recently got into magic.

I've always admired how deep magic's lore is, despite not being strictly necessary to play the game. I could play an Urza deck ignorant of all of this, but knowing it enriches the game so much. Thanks for presenting it so well 🤎

Your videos are so good! They're so captivating!

Media pega que te mandaste, un excelente video!

I actually wish the probably cancelled MTG Netflix show would have focused of Urza and Mishra and the overarching stary of the brother's war then moved on to the gatewatch.

He was single minded in his fight against phyrexia because the threat was against ultimate evil.... the phyrexians are the very essence of Darkness, their depraved ways and inhumanity was infinite... urza did the best he could given the circumstances.

If someone is born on the first day of a year and another is born on the last day of the same year, they aren't "technically" the same age. That's 1 day short of being a year older

Urza is so based lol

I hope you revisit some of this now that dominaria united and the brother's war is out.

Urza is a very realistic character in terms of behavior. In DnD he totally would be lawful evil since he actually don´t care about others at all. He just need to finish his campaign even though he has to trick, manipulate or even sacrifice others. He just don´t ask the others if they are willing to help, he just utilize them... This to me is a very evil behavior, although the reason is totally valid (phyrexia was a horrible menace).

what calls my attention is for sure if he actually felt any piece of remose about his actions, and if so, when... Because it seems with the pass of the years, he became even more megalomaniacal and maquiavelic (the story of the soulbombs... what an A...).

Great video. I was curious about MTG lore from some of the videos they've recently released, which led me here. Have to say though, Urza's capitulation in the end kind of ruins the whole story, as it's hard to see any reasonable or logical or even emotional pathway to his decision. No great leader would just change their mind on the brink of ultimate victory against a hated opponent that they have fought long bitter war with for years. No more than you could imagine Biden suddenly becoming a hard core alt-right MAGA supporter, or Trump endorsing Obama, or Churchill surrendering to Hitler on the brink of victory. I have no stake in MTG, so as an outsider, pretty poor storytelling

Urza did nothing wrong

currently working on a DnD 5e campaign set within the first Phyrexian invasion and this is super helpful as i try to figure out how to make all of these characters into NPC’s 🤣😄 thank you!

I feel like Urza is the ultimate symbol of power causing disconnection. Like the video says his concern for his inventions and his ideas outweigh any person.

Growing up as a kid in the 90’s, I remember reading novels about much of this story. Gerrard was an amazing hero, and Urza was equal parts God and Devil who did what he must to fight the Superdevil.

One small correction, though: Karn already found the Cylix during Return the Dominaria, outright stating he plans to use it on New Phyrexia.

Quite the impressive character writing it seems to be a nightmare, but what an impressive saga came out of it.

love the lore 🔥🔥🔥

That was great! Can you guys do one like this that's about sarpadia and fallen empires?

Karn to be the new father of machines?

I really enjoy the lore aspect, but find it very confusing when you use other characters in depictions, such as when you used avacyn's image when talking about radiant, or continuously show eldrazi when talking about phyrexians

Urza was an unusually intelligent person sure. As far as his morals, given the immense power dropped in his lap, he was more or less just a guy. He did probably better with that power than I would have. That's for sure

Basically, he is Rick Sanchez.

"Whatever creatures had stood on Tolaria were blinded by the flash, and deafened by the concussion, and dismantled by the raw power. Phyrexians, scholars, students, hinds, fleas - all died in that moment. Their struggles were done. Their bodies were gone. Even the ground on which they stood turned to wax and ran. Only Rayne and Hanna were safe, sealed in their sarcophigi. How like Urza had Barrin become."

- from "Invasion" by J.Robert King

This was an amazing watch. As a player who only got into magic a year-ish ago, this video is great for context for Dominaria United, the upcoming Brothers War. I did know some things about Urza and the war against Yawgmoth (much of it through spice8rack's video on yagmoth), but to get the full story of Urza himself was great. Fantastic work

amazing done

one thing for the commentors, don't forgot this is fiction. the writers chose to make someone who commits multiple genocides a hero. they could have just not had him kill so many people.
the statements of "necessary evil" and whatnot are in my estimation a thermian argument. urzas actions cannot be justified outside of the lore which was again entirely chosen by the writers, so his actions cannot be justified.

and the bloodlines project was eugenics, theres no grey area. it was wholly immoral and reprehensible. its honestly baffling that the bloodlines project story line was ever printed.

Is it just a typo when there is a Z added randomly to the start of a word in some of the quotes?

Urza is Rick Sanchez from a different dimension.

Amazing recounting of the events, you had my interest fornthe entirety of the video! If i may give some feedback,during some parts of it there were distracting clips about things that were unrelated to what you were narrating. I thing it would be less overwhelming for the senses to only use images,as you do for most of the video! Nonetheless,amazing work!

I never Zcared to look further into mtg lore Zuntil I caught you in the recommended. Thanks for Zthe excellent content

Well done ! I wish I could hit the like button more than once!!

what a story, wow.

Weakstone looks straight up like a yu gi oh card.