Welcome back for part two of our post-War of the Spark character synopsis. You can read part one here. Yesterday we covered everyone from Ajani Goldmane to Mowu; now comes the rest of the alphabet.
Spoiler warning: Do not read ahead if you have not read or learned the events depicted in the War of the Spark novel.
Nahiri
Nahiri arrived early on and was at the planeswalker summit of New Prahv, though it seems she was only there in an attempt to find Sorin. She was later seen fighting against her old ally, and later again fighting alongside him against the eternals. It remains to be seen if their feud is over or just put aside.
Narset
Came alone in response to the beacon. Was present at the summit of planeswalkers, and was later seen fighting alongside Tamiyo.
Neheb
One of the generals of the dreadhorde, Neheb was beheaded and finally laid to rest by Samut.
Nicol Bolas
The invasion of Ravnica is a masterpiece of shock and awe. Bolas destroys the chamber of the guildpact, installs himself on a throne overlooking the rubble, and summons his army of eternals. He remains there for almost the entire novel, completely ignoring the efforts of the planeswalkers to oppose him. He briefly steps in to prevents Jace, Jaya, Vivien and Teferi from assassinating Liliana, but otherwise lets events unfold.
This confidence comes from his knowledge that he’s made himself immune to the Blackblade and therefore cannot be harmed by the only weapon they’ve brought to kill him. But this arrogance comes back to bite him when Liliana betrays him in the final act, as he was unaware that he’d be vulnerable to both Hazoret’s spear and his own elderspell channeled through the God-Eternals. Left broken and without a spark, Bolas is whisked away to the meditation realm by Ugin, though the rest of the multiverse belives him to be dead.
Nissa Revane
Nissa arrives from Zendikar midway through the novel. We first see her as she’s awakening Vitu-Gazi, although her assault on the Dragon God is cut disappointingly short by the arrival of the God-Eternals. At the summit at New Prahv she rejoins the Gatewatch, publicly swearing an oath to defend Ravnica. From there her role in the story diminishes. She joins Kaya, Teyo and Rat on a quest to reunite the guilds, but the Selesnya conclave rebuffs her outright for destroying Vitu-Ghazi. She quietly rejoins the fight alongside Gideon.
At Jace’s request she leads the ritual to realign Ravnica’s leylines and resurrect Niv-Mizzet as the new Living Guildpact. She helps Chandra reignite the Immortal Sun, and arrives at the final battle just in time to witness Gideon’s death. She survives the war and is one of the unspoken leaders during the planewide celebration. It’s heavily implied that she and Chandra start a relationship at the end of the novel, but Chandra gets pulled away to cremate the remaining eternals before that avenue can be explored.
Niv-Mizzet
Already dead by the start of the novel, Niv-Mizzet persists in ghost form offplane. From there he is resurrected by the combined might of the guilds. He quickly wins a crucial fight against God-Eternal Kefnet, but victory exhausts his strength and leaves him powerless. He is forgotten until the final moments of the war, when he seizes Hazoret’s spear and strikes a crucial blow against Bolas at the same time that Liliana is executing her coup. In the aftermath of the final battle he takes up the mantle of Living Guildpact; he then charges Kaya, Vraska, and Ral Zarek with hunting down Liliana Vess, Dovin Baan, and Tezzeret to atone for their crimes.
Ob Nixilis
After arriving early, Ob Nixilis quickly realized the severity of the danger and reluctantly joined the planeswalker summit at New Prahv. He volunteered to join the strike team to take out Tezzeret and performed admirably despite his verbal abuse of Dack Fayden. He planeswalked away as soon as Tezzeret fled, refusing to put himself in the line of fire even to take down a threat as grave as Bolas.
Rakdos
The Lord of Riots sits out the early part of the war, incensed over the death of the razorwitch Hekara at Vraska’s hands. After Hekara is resurrected Rakdos still refuses to join in the ritual to resurrect Niv-Mizzet, but later appears at the last minute to carry Gideon into the final assault on the citadel.
Ral Zarek
While Ral has worked for Bolas in the past, he betrays the dragon at the outset of the novel by activating an interplanar beacon to summon planeswalkers to stop the dragon. This was part of Bolas’s plan though, as he needed a multitude of sparks to ascend. Ral also led a failed attempt to elevate Niv-Mizzet through the power of the guilds before the book began, but it ended in tragedy.
Ral begins the book lost, without his guildmaster, and hungry for revenge. He spends the early sections of the book searching for his lover Tomik, fighting against the eternals alongside Kaya and Teyo. After the sumit at New Prahv he joins Kaya, Teyo, and Nissa to reunite the guilds once again. They eventually succeed, and Ral serves as the Izzet representative in the ritual that resurrects Niv-Mizzet. Ral is now officially guildmaster of the Izzet. After the war is over Niv-Mizzet assigns him the task of hunting down Tezzeret for his role in Ravnica’s destruction.
Saheeli Rai
The lifecrafter arrived alongside Huatli. While she lacked the combat abilities of many other planeswalkers, her knowledge of the Planar Bridge was vital to defeating Bolas. She attends the summit at New Prahv, and gives Karn a custom-built automotan designed to destroy the planar bridge within Tezzeret’s chest. Saheeli herself joins Chandra Nalaar, Lazav, and Lavinia in the ploy to take down Dovin Baan and deactivate the Eternal Sun. She later helps Chandra reignite the Sun to trap Bolas on Ravnica; and from that point on remains in the Azorius guildhall, watching over the sun for the rest of the war.
Samut
One of the first planeswalkers to arrive on Ravnica. Samut fought relentlessly throughout the entire war, laying her former friends to rest with reckless abandon. She was part of the strike team that crossed the planar bridge to defeat Tezzeret and shut down the endless army of reinforcements. She helped carry Hazoret’s spear back to Ravnica, fought in the final assault on Bolas’s citadel, and remained after the celebration to see all of the eternals cremated.
Sarkhan Vol
One of the few planeswalkers not to answer the beacon, Sarkhan had been sent to Amonkhet by Ugin. There he waited until the strike team defeated Tezzeret to come in and suggest transporting Hazoret’s spear to Ravnica. A ferocious fighter in the later battles, it was also confirmed that Sarkhan knows The Wanderer from some previous adventure.
Sorin Markov
Seeming to arrive very late to the war, Sorin was first spotted fighting furiously against Nahiri. They were later seen fighting side-by-side to tear through the eternals, though whether their feud is buried or just put off for the moment remains to be seen.
Storrev
A Golgari lich and commander of the Erstwile, Storrev is one of Vraska’s few loyal retainers. She remains in the undercity, uninvolved in the war.
Tamiyo
Called to Ravnica by Ajani alongside Kiora, Tamiyo is present at the gathering of planeswalkers at New Prahv, and is later seen fighting alongside Narset.
Teferi
Teferi travels to Ravnica with the rest of the Gatewatch. He does little direct damage to the Dreadhorde, but is often seen using his time magic to slow their advance out of the planar bridge. Affter the summit at New Prahv he accompanies Jace, Jaya, and Vivien as part of the strike force that fails to assassinate Liliana. He survives the war, and is last seen carrying Gideon’s armor off with the rest of the Gatewatch.
Teyo Verada
We meet Teyo on his home plane of Gobahkhan as an apprentice shieldmage struggling to protect himself from the diamondstorms native to his homeland. The pull of Ral’s beacon confuses him and nearly kills him when the shields fail, but his spark ignites from the fear and he gets thrown to Ravnica. He quickly gets pulled in with Kaya, Ral, and Rat while they try to recover from the shock of Bolas’s initial invasion. He improves drastically as a shieldmage over the course of the worst day of his life, and does his best to protect his newfound friends. He accompanies Kaya and Ral in their quest to reunite the guilds, and while he mostly tries to stay in the background his connection with Rat proves crucial in a few occasions.
Teyo is also at the ritual that resurrects Niv-Mizzet, and after the war is over he overhears Kaya, Vraska and Ral being sent out on their quests. Notably, he starts to object when Liliana is named as a target, so maybe he’ll be showing up in that future arc.
Tezzeret
Working offscreen for nearly the entire fight, Tezzeret controlled the Planar Bridge from the wastes of Amonkhet for most of the book. The bridge was shattered by a strike team consisting of Dack Fayden, Ob Nixilis, Karn, and Samut, but Tezzeret was pleased by his defeat. He remarked that he hoped Bolas was destroyed, because the dragon was the only one who could stop him. With that parting shot, he planeswalked away.
Tibalt
Only mentioned once, Tibalt appeared in the background alongside Davriel Cane, commanding devils during a fight.
Tomik
Tomik spends most of the book offscreen, though we learn a lot about him from the characters he’s connected to. He starts as a shadowy, vaguely untrustworthy figure who might be playing the odds between Kaya and Teysa. This professional image of him is contrasted against Ral’s wholehearted devotion. He doesn’t appear until late in the second act, with the corpse of the fallen Razorwitch Hekara to convince Rakdos to join the effort to resurrect Niv-Mizzet. He goes into the final battle despite not being a fighter, though to his surprise Ral makes it a point of vaporizing any eternals that come near the Advokist. He survives the battle, and is one of the few to know of Ral’s mission to hunt down Tezzeret.
Trostani
Nearly comatose for most of the preceding block, Trostani was shaken from her stupor by the omnipotent threat of Bolas. With the conclave in harmony once more, she dispatched Emmara Tandris to represent the Selesnya in the bid to resurrect Niv-Mizzet.
Ugin
Manipulating events from behind the scenes, Ugin conspired with Sarkhan Vol and the ghost of Niv-Mizzet to set up Bolas’s defeat from the shadows. He made sure that Hazoret’s spear was brought to Ravnica, and during the final moments of the war he arrived under a shroud of invisibility magic, ripping his sparkless twin away from the city of guilds to imprison him in the meditation realm. There Ugin vowed to watch over his crippled brother until Bolas finally dies of old age.
Vivien Reid
Vivien traveled to Ravnica to kill Bolas in response to the destruction of her homeland. She fought against the dreadhorde at every opportunity. At the summit at New Prahv, she played a large role by convincing many on the newly-arrived planeswalkers that Bolas could not be sated, that he had to be defeated for anyone to survive. She reluctantly took part in the strike force that tried to kill Liliana Vess, though they were ultimately unsuccessful. Viven survives the war, and lobbies against destroying the Immortal Sun in the hope of using it to trap Liliana at a later date.
Vraska
Part of the original alliance to supercharge Niv-Mizzet, Vraska had recovered her sealed memories before the events of the book. She initially sided with Bolas anyway, assassinating Isperia to settle her score before fleeing the plane in shame. She returned after the beacon and the Immortal Sun were shut down, ending a budding conflict over who would claim the throne of the Golgari. Vraska descended into Rix Maadi to convince Rakdos to join the conflict, and represented the Golgari in resurrecting Niv-Mizzet. In the aftermath of the war, she has agreed to pay off her debt to Ravnica by tracking down and killing the traitor Dovin Baan.
The Wanderer
Mysterious in all of her appearances, we learn little about the Wanderer aside from her powers and style. She fights fearlessly, despite the fact that her kinetic absorption abilities are at their weakest against eternals that could kill her with a touch. The one detail we learn about this enigma of a character is that she know Sarkhan Vol—and their relationship is not a friendly one.
Once Bolas is defeated, she is the first planeswalker to leave Ravnica—either by choice or by curse.
Levi Byrne has been with the game since Worldwake and has a rabid love for fantasy writing that goes back decades. Despite some forays into Legacy he plays Commander almost exclusively, and has a love for the crazy plays and huge games that make Magic what it is. He was the go-to advisor of his playgroup on deck construction for more than five years before joining Dear Azami.