Lore & Story
MTG Planeswalkers, by Story Arc
The 33 planeswalkers who actually carry Magic's story, grouped by the arc they belong to rather than by the alphabet. An A-to-Z tells you how to spell Sarkhan. This tells you who these people are to each other.
How to Read This List
Two things make Magic's cast confusing, and both are worth getting straight before the list.
Story order and release order are different. The Brothers' War happens first in the story and was told in 1994 and then again in 2022. A planeswalker's first card is not their first appearance, and the sets are not in chronological order. The groups below are in rough story order.
The Mending split the cast in half. Planeswalkers from before it were nearly immortal and could reshape worlds; ones from after it are mortal and can be killed by an ordinary sword. That is why the old guard below reads as a different kind of character than the Gatewatch, and it is a change that happened on the page rather than a matter of writing. What a planeswalker is, and what the Mending changed →
Hover any card to see it. Every one links through to where you can buy it.
The Gatewatch
6Five planeswalkers who swore an oath on Zendikar to stop threatening the Multiverse one plane at a time and start doing it together. They are the modern story's main cast, and most of the last decade of sets is about them succeeding, failing, or falling out.
Jace Beleren ↗
Telepath, and the closest thing the group has to a leader. Spends most of his arc regretting it.
Gideon Jura ↗
Soldier and protector, invulnerable in a fight. Dies in the war against Nicol Bolas.
Chandra Nalaar ↗
Pyromancer from Kaladesh. The one who joins because it is the right thing to do rather than the strategic one.
Nissa Revane ↗
Elf animist of Zendikar, bound to the life of a plane rather than to any person on it.
Liliana Vess ↗
Necromancer, bound by demonic contracts, and the member nobody trusts. Correctly.
Ajani Goldmane ↗
Leonin healer, joins later, and is the one the Phyrexians get to first.
The Old Guard: Pre-Mending Walkers
8Planeswalkers from before the Mending, when a spark made you something closer to a god. Most are dead or sparkless now, and the survivors are the reason the modern cast so often looks outmatched. If a story problem is thousands of years old, one of these people caused it.
Urza, Lord High Artificer ↗
The Brothers' War, the Weatherlight, and a three-thousand-year plan against Phyrexia. Printed as a creature.
Karn Liberated ↗
A silver golem Urza built, who became a planeswalker and inherited a plane he did not want.
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria ↗
Gave up his spark to seal Dominaria's time rifts, and later got it back. Zhalfir is his.
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury ↗
Elvish planeswalker who ended the Ice Age with the World Spell, and spent her life afterwards on Llanowar.
Jaya Ballard ↗
Pyromancer, Jodah's contemporary, and the reason a lot of Dominaria's flavor text is funny.
Venser, the Sojourner ↗
Artificer who gave his spark to Karn to cure him of Phyrexian corruption, and died doing it.
Sorin Markov ↗
Vampire of Innistrad who created Avacyn to protect humanity from his own kind.
Nahiri, the Harbinger ↗
Lithomancer of Zendikar, one of the three who imprisoned the Eldrazi, and betrayed by the other two.
The Elder Dragons
3Older than the planeswalkers and older than most of the planes they walk on. Two of them drive more of Magic's story than any other characters, and they are siblings who have been arguing for several thousand years.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker ↗
The story's defining villain. Spends a decade of sets trying to recover the power the Mending took.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon ↗
Bolas's brother, colorless, and the one who finally stops him. Invented the hedrons that held the Eldrazi.
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God ↗
Bolas at the height of the War of the Spark, holding the sparks of everyone he trapped on Ravnica.
Ravnica and the War Against Bolas
6The planeswalkers drawn into Bolas's endgame, most of them through Ravnica's guilds. This group is where the modern cast stops being the Gatewatch and becomes an alliance, because stopping an Elder Dragon took everyone.
Vraska the Unseen ↗
Gorgon assassin, later Golgari guildmaster, and the one whose loyalties are genuinely uncertain.
Ral Zarek ↗
Izzet storm mage, working for Niv-Mizzet, and the one who builds the machine that matters.
Kaya, Ghost Assassin ↗
Spirit assassin, hired onto Ravnica, and left holding the Orzhov guild afterwards.
Tezzeret the Seeker ↗
Artificer, and Bolas's most reliable and least willing lieutenant.
Domri Rade ↗
Gruul, young, and the clearest example of what siding with Bolas costs.
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver ↗
Nightmare walker with no known origin, no known face, and no stated allegiance.
The Compleated
4Phyrexia's answer to the planeswalker problem. Compleation turns a walker into a Phyrexian while leaving the spark intact, which is what made the invasion of every plane at once possible. Some were restored afterwards and some were not.
Tamiyo, Compleated Sage ↗
Moonfolk storyteller of Kamigawa, and the first walker shown compleated.
Ajani, Sleeper Agent ↗
Compleated quietly and sent back to his friends, which is the point of the card's name.
Vraska, Betrayal's Sting ↗
Compleated on New Phyrexia during the invasion's preparation.
Nissa, Ascended Animist ↗
Compleated, and turned against the plane-life she spent her whole arc protecting.
The Newer Generation
6Walkers introduced more recently, several of whom carry sets on their own now. The Omenpaths changed what this group is for: with travel between planes no longer requiring a spark, a set no longer needs a planeswalker to justify visiting somewhere.
Kaito Shizuki ↗
Ninja of Kamigawa, working the gap between the plane's neon present and its spirit world.
Wrenn and Six ↗
A dryad and the treefolk she is bonded to, counted as one planeswalker.
Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor ↗
Teacher at Strixhaven, and deliberately the least forthcoming character in the modern cast.
Basri Ket ↗
Young white walker of Amonkhet, introduced after the plane's story had already ended badly.
Niko Aris ↗
Kolophon-born, Theros-adjacent, and the first planeswalker to be shown as nonbinary in the fiction.
Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast ↗
Ikoria's monster-bonder, whose arc is what happens when a walker's judgement is wrong.
Who Is Not Here, and Why
This is not every planeswalker. It is the ones carrying story weight, which is a judgement call and is meant to be: every set adds walkers, so a page claiming to be complete would be wrong within months and would read as a phone book in the meantime.
Two groups are left off deliberately. Walkers with a card and almost no story, of which there are a good number, and characters who shape the story enormously without being planeswalkers at all. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician never had a spark and is arguably the most consequential figure in Magic's history. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite came closer to conquering the Multiverse than Bolas ever did. Neither is a planeswalker, and the distinction matters to the story.
FAQ
Who are the main planeswalkers in MTG?
The Gatewatch is the modern story's main cast: Jace Beleren, Gideon Jura, Chandra Nalaar, Nissa Revane and Liliana Vess, with Ajani Goldmane joining later. Around them sit the Elder Dragons Nicol Bolas and Ugin, who drive more of the plot than anyone, and a handful of surviving pre-Mending walkers including Teferi and Karn.
Who is the most powerful planeswalker in Magic?
By what they actually accomplish in the story, Nicol Bolas and Urza, and both for the same reason: they are pre-Mending, which meant something categorically larger than being a planeswalker does today. Among the current cast the honest answer is that the gap between them is small, and card power is not a guide to it, since a card is balanced against other cards rather than against the fiction.
How many planeswalkers are there in MTG?
More characters than cards, and the number moves with every set. This page lists the walkers who carry real story weight rather than attempting a complete count, because a complete count is stale the moment it is published and is not what anyone is actually asking for.
Which planeswalkers have died?
Gideon Jura died at the War of the Spark, Venser gave his spark and his life to save Karn, and Urza died at the end of the Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria. Death is less permanent in Magic than in most fiction, so treat any list of it as current rather than final.
Can I build a Commander deck around planeswalkers?
Yes, and it is called superfriends. A planeswalker can only be your commander if the card says so, which most do not, so the usual build puts one legendary creature in the command zone and fills the 99 with walkers plus the protection needed to keep them alive against three opponents. If you want a planeswalker actually leading the deck, Oathbreaker is the format built for it.
Story current through Lorwyn Eclipsed. Magic's story is revised as new sets are published, so a later release can add to or change anything here.
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