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Urza's Lands and their role on the Lore

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Urza's lands are back with new artwork in Double Masters VIP Edition, but do you know the role of these lands in Magic's lore? This is the story I will tell you now.

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übersetzt von Exylem

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For those who don't know, Urzatron is the nickname given to the trio of cards which are important on the game and on the lore of this Multiverse:

Urza's Mine, an excavation made to extract ores, coal and precious gems.

Urza's Power Plant, where artifacts were created with the extracted materials, including war equipments, machines, tools and the buildings necessary for energy generation, like electrical or nuclear energy.

Urza's Tower, a tall and isolated structure, which was used as a watching post, a refuge and base of studies.

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If all these lands are on the battlefield, they are combined, granting seven mana with just three lands.

Urzatron was printed for the first time in Anquities and later on Chronicles, Fifth, Eighth and Ninth editions. It was also released online for Masters Edition IV and now they are back on Double Masters. To commemorate, I'm here to show you how these lands fit Urza's story and, to do that, we'll get back to The Brothers' War.

The Brothers' War was one of the most important events on the history of Dominaria, where Urza and his brother Mishra fought a huge war over the control of the continent Terisiare. In a world where magic was still barely known, the armies of that time used War Machines. Urza created artifacts based on projects from the Thran civilization and Mishra received support from phyrexian technology, which was also thran technology, but in a corrupted form.

On the first years of the war, it was like a type of Cold War, where both sides built machines just to defend their territories. While Urza was obtaining power on Yotia, Mishra was doing the same with the Fallaji on the desert, becoming a counsellor next to the Fallaji governor during many years. The first creations of Urza were the Towers he built in many strategy points of Terisiare, and that's why Urza's Tower has many different artworks. They were used as sentinels to watch the enemy's movements and as a refuge for the study of magical items which were starting to show up on that moment.

A series of stealthy attacks began between the two brothers and their realms, soon resulting in an open war. A collection of more and more elaborated machines developed by the two brothers started to fight on both sides and the war soon went out of control. As the conflict grow more natural resources were used, and Urza's mines turned the green area of Terisiare in a great desert while his Power Plants transformed these resources into energy to fuel power stones and new artifacts. This continued for decades, destroying the continent until there was nothing more to claim.

Then the sea explorations started, when an island full of mana and natural resources named Argoth was found, where the final battle between the two brothers happened, the fateful day where Urza and Mishra met face to face with their armies. Urza discovered that Mishra had been corrupted due to phyrexian influence, slowly transforming from a man to a living machine. Filled with anger, Urza used an ancient artifact named Golgothian Sylex, pouring all of his memories and emotions on it.

The resulting explosion of the Sylex was one of the most traumatic events on the dominarian's history. It killed both armies, decimated the continent of Argoth and altered the climatic patterns for centuries, leading to the Ice Age. However, Urza ignited his spark, becoming a Planeswalker, an immensely powerful being, capable of moving through the Multiverse just by thinking about it.

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On the Eighth Edition, Urza's lands gained new artwork. This time, they show another point of the story, when Urza learned about the Multiverse, lost his brother and discovered that a new and powerful threat was coming, and because of it he couldn't devastate the continent like he did before. He should work to surpass the inventions of the Thran. His new Tower became his headquarters, watched by artifact creatures and even by Karn. In his hunger for power and knowledge, Urza dug deep into Dominaria's past and learned that there was power underground beyond what he could comprehend in the past. He went below ground and built his Mines deep into the ocean, so he could make use of the mana energy to fuel his Power Plants.

Now let's talk about the new arts from Mark Tedin of the Urzatron. I know we have already seen many memes about this Karn, as he is indeed very weird looking, but the rest of the scenario looks really cool, at least for me. The colors may look a bit strange at first, but there is a reason for this, as Mark Tedin said that the original art has colors which look less pastel and greenish than they really are, as for some reason the colors were slightly altered during the scanning process.

Art from the Spoiler:

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Art posted by Mark:

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I didn't notice many differences, but like it or not, this trio will be very sought. These new lands also have a story behing the arts. According to Mark Tedin himself, he wanted to show a Karn who was recently liberated having just left Phyrexia, that is, the underworld, and came to the Urza's monuments which for Karn, which lived for a long time of his life there, would be like a refuge. The three lands together represent an idea of the Urza's Factory used so many times during the war against Phyrexia.

And to end the cicle of Urza's lands, in Time Spiral the card Urza's Factory was released, showing the trio of lands together, its ability also created to make use of the three Urza's lands on the battlefield. It was also on this factory that Urza and his apprentices Teferi and Jhoira worked to build many important artifacts on Magic's story like part of the Weatherlight, but this is a different story.

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