On Tuesday, Magic: The Gathering showed off card spoilers for Mishra, the antagonist of next set The Brothers’ War. Just like his brother, Mishra can’t be cast. Instead, you create this ultra-powerful Phyrexian creature card with the Meld mechanic. You form it by combining two other cards together: Phyrexian Dragon Engine and Mishra, Claimed By Gix, also newly spoiled.
While you have to jump through a few hoops to create it, the resulting creature, Mishra Lost to Phyrexia, is very scary indeed. A huge 9/9, this phyrexian artificer can do all sorts of things whenever it attacks or drops onto the battlefield. It can ramp, pump the team, deal damage, force discards, and more. In total, It has six separate powers, and can use three of them every single turn. Pretty absurd.
As Magic head designer Mark Rosewater said on the October 4 livestream where The Brothers’ War spoiler was shown, Wizards didn’t think they could make a Magic card with this many effects: “It just didn’t fit on the card”. However, these Meld cards are actually printed across two cards, which means there’s more space. One half of Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia is on the rear side of Phyrexian Dragon Engine, and the other is on the back of Mishra, Claimed by Gix. When you’re ready to Meld, you turn the cards over and stick them together to make one giant Magic card.
This Phyrexian Mishra is the evil counterpart to the Urza planeswalker card revealed last week. Whereas Urza’s journey in The Brothers’ War ends with him becoming a planeswalker, Mishra has a more ignominious fate, becoming a sinister Phyrexian.
With Rakdos and Azorius colour combinations, the Urza and Mishra cards cover four of the five magic colours. However, Wizards of the Coast didn’t want Green to be left out, and so an unannounced third Meld super being is showing up in the set, and it’ll be Green.
Check out our guide for all the latest news on The Brothers’ War. And if you want to know what’s coming next, here is the MTG 2023 release schedule.