Magic Untapped takes a look back at Oath of the Gatewatch, the second half of the two-set BFZ block.
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Video Transcript:
On January 22, 2016, Oath of the Gatewatch released for Magic: The Gathering and brought with it 186 cards (including five reprints). It’s the collectible card game’s 69th expansion.
The set is the follow-up to Battle for Zendikar and, as such, picks up roughly where the other left off with four planeswalkers – Gideon Jura, Jace Beleren, Chandra Nalaar, and Nissa Revane – along with their Zendikari allies joining forces to battle against two eldrazi titans – Ulamog and Kozilek – and their respective broods.
To that end, the set’s symbol is a stylized representation of the crown-like shapes that float atop Kozilek’s head.
As for the set’s story itself, you’re in luck because we have a story summary for you.
The enormous and imposing Eldrazi titan, Ulamog, has been freed from the trap that had been carefully laid out to capture him and Kozilek, another titan, has emerged courtesy of the demonic planeswalker, Ob Nixilis.
In short, allied planeswalkers Gideon, Nissa, and Jace, and the rest of the native Zendikari have their hands full.
Kiora, a planeswalker Gideon recruited to assist against Ulamog, chooses to go it alone against Kozilek while the rest deal with the other titan.
Using the Bident of Thassa that she had stolen… err… permanently borrowed from its namesake Theros god, the merfolk planeswalker beckoned all of the creatures of the sea to attack Kozilek. Creatures big and small – including a massive octopus called Lorthos – swarm the titan, but Kozilek was unphased – even going so far as to slice Lorthos in twain.
Despite her effort, Kiora found herself defeated by the titan as she loses the bident – it falling into the depths of the sea.
Meanwhile, Ob Nixilis, whom had not yet departed the plane, decided to run interference and have some fun with Gideon, Nissa, and Jace as penalty for Nissa interfering with him previously.
“Would you like to hear something amusing? If you had simply let me finish my work, I would have regained my spark and left your world. I didn’t choose you as an enemy, but now I feel obliged to be the enemy you deserve.”
As Nixilis is having his fun with the planeswalkers, Chandra arrives. She frees her fellow planeswalkers and launches a counter-attack against Nixilis. The demonic planeswalker finally departs, vowing to destroy them all… eventually.
Now able to focus once more on the Eldrazi threat, the planeswalkers witness the devastation the two titans have unleashed upon the land and against Gideon’s allied army, which has been all but wiped out at this point.
And, save for the ruined landscapes they left behind, the titans were nowhere to be seen.
Realizing that they must work together more now than ever, the four planeswalkers take an oath between one another – a promise to keep watch and defend against those whom need defending.
“For justice and peace, I will keep watch.”
“For the life of every plane, I will keep watch.”
“For the sake of the Multiverse, I will keep watch.”
“If it means that people can live in freedom, yeah, I’ll keep watch.”
Oath or not, the group still had the rampaging titans to deal with.
Remembering what Ugin had told him previously about how the Eldrazi titans were just part of a larger being or group of beings in the Blind Eternities – the realm between realms – that are manifesting on the plane much like a man’s fingers manifesting in a pond when that man sticks his hand into the water, Jace deduces that they need to find a way to bring the whole entity into the plane so that it could be fully destroyed; pulling the man into the pond by the hand, as it were.
Setting a plan into action, Nissa utilizes her unique bond with Zendikar’s leylines to set a new trap and the other three planeswalkers – Jace, Gideon, and Chandra – do their best to lure the two titans Nissa’s way.
As the titans approached the elven planeswalker, the leylines of Zendikari magic tighten around them, locking them in place and pulling their true forms in from the Blind Eternities. The effort, however, exhausted Nissa and she was not able to do anything more against them
The existence of titan’s true forms on Zendikar, however, quickly began to take their toll on the plane. In fact, rather than the titans being pulled into the plane, it felt more like the plane itself had been pulled to the titans.
Chandra offered to incinerate them and get rid of them that way, but Jace was concerned such an action would prove catastrophic to the plane.
Kiora, whom was greatly disturbed as what’s now happened to her native plane and also annoyed that Jace wouldn’t allow Chandra to burn the titans to the ground, beckoned the entirety of Zendikar’s ocean to crash down upon Nissa in order to disrupt her magic and free the titans, putting Zendikar back to normal (as it were), but Jace was able to part the crashing sea and spare the elven planeswalker.
Seeing few other options, Jace changes his mind and tells Chandra to give her idea a go.
Knowing she has but one chance to get it right, the pyromancer planeswalker channels the mana of Zendikar itself into a catastrophic fireball that she sends directly toward the captured titans. It strikes true and both Ulamog and Kozilek are incinerated – presumably for good.
The plane instantly snaps back to its new normal and the survivors celebrate, though there was much of the plane that needed to recover and be rebuilt.
Nissa gets to work, using her magic to restore the nature of her native plane.
Jace, curious about the location of the missing third titan, Emrakul, decides he should leave the plane for another as he seeks council with another of the multiverse’s ancient planeswalkers. As such, he travels to Innistrad to locate Sorin Markov.
And that does it for the story of Oath of the Gatewatch, but stay tuned as there’s plenty more to mention when it comes to the actual cards themselves.
With design led by Ethan Fleischer, development by Ian Duke, and art direction by Jeremy Jarvis, the set was put together with three key things in mind: colorless matters, planeswalkers matter, and teamwork matters.
As such, Oath of the Gatewatch was designed to support the game’s Two-Headed Giant format better than any set made before it. This can be seen though the introduction of a new named mechanic called “Surge,” which provided spells with the ability with an alternate casting cost so long as you or a teammate of yours had cast another spell during the turn.
The set also introduced two other new names mechanics in Support and Cohort.
Support puts a +1/+1 counter on each of up to a specific number of creatures. Cohort is an ability word for activated abilities that requires the tapping of an ally creature along with another ally creature for an effect.
Landfall makes a return in the set, but only on two cards: Embodiment of Fury and Embodiment of Insight.
Something else introduced in Oath of the Gatewatch is the colorless mana symbol. Within the set, it was used on cards that depict Kozilek’s eldrazi brood. Along with the colorless mana symbol comes a new basic land: Wastes.
Unlike generic mana costs, which can be paid with any color (or non-color) of mana, colorless mana costs can only be paid with mana that is specifically colorless. As such, Wizards of the Coast changed how a number of older cards worked with, for example, cards like Ashnod’s Altar, which previously produced two generic mana, and Thran Dynamo, which tapped for three, now producing two colorless and three colorless mana when used, respectively.
<DTW 2:17-20 “This set changed…colorless mana symbol” 3:57-4:22 “The problem was…lot of ways.” 5:14-33 “One of the…already do it.”>
Oath of the Gatewatch was made available in 16-card booster packs (with that 16th card being a marketing or token card), five intro packs, and a fat pack. And, in like with Battle for Zendikar, an extremely small percentage of packs included a special foil “Expedition” card. This time around, however, rather than the fetch, shock, and check lands found in its predecessor, Oath of the Gatewatch’s expedition lineup includes ten filter lands and ten other lands iconic to Magic’s past such as Wasteland, Ancient Tomb, and Kor Haven.
In terms of cycles, Oath of the Gatewatch only had three:
- Allied color taplands at uncommon;
- Three-mana allied uncommons, which each cost one generic plus one each of an allied colored pair that are designed as flagpost cards for the block’s limited environment, and;
- Enemy color uncommons, five uncommon creatures in enemy colors designed to define the limited archetype for those color pairs.
There is also a semi-cycle of “oath” cards, which are enchantments that care about the planeswalker card type and represent the oath taken by each of the story’s four main planeswalkers: Gideon, Nissa, Jace, and Chandra.
Oath of the Gatewatch also completed a mega-cycle of “manlands” – that is, land cards that can become creatures for a cost – that began with Shambling Vent and Lumbering Falls in Battle for Zendikar and finished with the addition of Wandering Fumarole, Hissing Quagmire, and Needle Spires in Oath of the Gatewatch.
Of course, there are a handful of cards from the set worth a special mention for one reason or another, including:
- Goblin Dark Dwellers, a 4/4 with menace for five mana (3RR), it provides extra value by allowing its controller to cast an instant or sorcery card with mana cost of three or less for free as its enter-the-battlefield ability;
- Hedron Alignment, an alternate win condition card that cares about having a copy of the card in four different zones: One’s hand, graveyard, battlefiend, and in exile;
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, a powerful value engine that rewards its controller whenever a creature controlled by an opponent would die;
- Kozilek, the Great Distortion, the second iteration of the second of the three eldrazi titans and the first to feature the new colorless mana symbol in its mana cost;
- Reflector Mage, a tempo card that would prove to be too punishing and game-slowing in control decks. It was banned in Standard in January 2017;
- Sylvan Advocate, a card that was as standard staple at the time that got better as the game went along, and;
- Warping Wail, a flexible and colorless answer card that fits in perfectly in Urzatron decks that would often otherwise struggle with interactions.
And, speaking of Urzatron, thanks to several powerful new eldrazi cards that were introduced with Oath of the Gatewatch such as Thought-Knot Seer, Eldrazi Displacer, World Breaker, Matter Reshaper, and more, new breeds of ‘tron decks took center stage and pretty much dominated Modern for some time, including Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch.
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For the Oath of the Gatewatch prerelease, the set’s teamwork matters theme was pushed as the Two-Headed Giant (2HG) format was central to the experience. While traditional 1v1 play was prevalent for it, local game stores were encouraged to also hold 2HG events as well. And, of course, those who participated received a random rare or mythic rare, date stamped prerelease promo in their prerelease pack.
Other promotional cards for the set include Endbringer, the set’s launch promo, Goblin Dark-Dwellers (the set’s buy-a-box promo), a full-art Immolating Glare for game day participants, and a foil, full-art Jori En, Ruin Diver for game day top-eight finishers.
As for Oath of the Gatewatch, as well as the whole Gatewatch super-team story arc (one that would not-so-affectionately be referred to as the “Jacetice League” – a parody of the D.C. comics “Justice League of Super Heroes”) that would follow, what do the folks at Wizards of the Coast think of it all now that they look back at it all?
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So, what are your thoughts on Oath of the Gatewatch and just the whole Gatewatch concept overall? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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