Almost certainly never going to get my hands on one of these, so not a whole lot of point in critiquing the choices. As far as possible annoyance over getting a duplicate of a cheap card I already have a playset of, I'd feel more robbed if I pulled a Black Vise than if I pulled an Ornithopter - the Thopter can go in basically any artifact deck, so it's not like it'll be lacking for use. Only so many kinds of decks want a Vise. (If I luck into acquiring a super-mythic, I'd rather keep it than sell it, but I'd also rather use it than let it set in a box.)
Surprised to see Arcbound Ravager and Wurmcoil Engine, but they're very good artifacts and I guess they're not quite plane-specific enough to disqualify on that basis. Also like that Modular and Sunburst don't have their reminder text on Masterpieces with them: if mythics will leave off mechanic reminder text for space, super-mythics certainly should. And in the case of Ravager, it lets them fit in flavor text, which is a plus.
There are only four artifacts between the latter two, and one of those is on the reserved list (Planar Gate). The others are Plague Boiler, Plague Myr, and...Planar Portal. Would they include spoilers in the Masterpieces?
(Meanwhile, there's a pretty decent number of solid artifacts that could slot in at #43, including Panoptic Mirror and Pentad Prism...but it's also the slot where any artifact whose name starts with "Phyrexian" would go. So that's a thing.)
Edit: The main reason I doubt that the missing spaces are for AER cards is because the Gearhulks had their own space at the beginning of the Inventions list in KLD, separated from the alphabetical ordering of the rest. I'd expect any new cards in the AER Inventions to follow the same pattern, not be smack-dab in the middle.
Edit #2: Welp, that's been proven wrong. Forgot about the color aspect of the Gearhulks. *shrug* Oh well.
In addition to Aetherworks Marvel, a recent Blogatog post implied that Aether Revolt will have some level of focus on sacrifice effects, particularly with artifacts as a resource. A planeswalker with a +1 that generates artifact tokens - which also have the power to sac themselves at will - seems like a great enabler for those kinds of effects.
As things stand, Tezzeret probably isn't a card for me, since I'm a casual player who (unless I get a lot of cards in Tezz's colors that play into that theme at the AER prerelease) is unlikely to have an artifact deck in his colors to put him in. (Though that would change if I get around to buying the Breya commander precon.) But it still seems like a solid card to me, and I expect it's going to look better and better as more of the set is revealed.
Slightly silly alternate speculation: the Gatewatch doesn't top out at 16, but at 12: one for each of the "core" D&D classes. I mean, look at the team lineup so far:
Gideon: Paladin (or Fighter, I guess, but he seems more the Paladin archetype to me)
Jace: Wizard
Nissa: Druid
Chandra: Sorcerer
Liliana: Warlock
Ajani: Cleric
Which leaves...
Rogue: Dack or Kaya
Ranger: Arlinn or Domri
Monk: Narset
Barbarian: Garruk? (He's arguably more of a Ranger, but he's really the only existing PW that could fit this archetype)
Fighter (or Paladin): Elspeth?
Bard: ??? (someone new?)
...in all seriousness, I guess I just have trouble seeing the Gatewatch being pushed to having a character for every color pair - not when Liliana's such an odd fit already, and not when it's only been a couple of years since we got representatives for all 10 color pairs in general (and less than a year since we got up to 10 current reps, with Narset replacing the dead Venser, and Nahiri and Daretti replacing long-since-shifted Ajani and Sarkhan). More likely, further expansions would go toward filling a niche that the team was previously lacking, like how Ajani gives them a healer.
In that vein: Nissa covers the "nature mage" spot, which makes Koth unlikely, but any of Domri/Arlinn/Garruk could cover the "beastmaster" side of Green, which the Gatewatch doesn't really have represented. Beyond that, there's an obvious space for an artificer (Saheeli, Daretti, or maybe Karn) and a rogue-type (as mentioned, Dack or Kaya). After that, it starts getting tougher finding 'walkers that aren't too niche (fault-seer Dovin), but also don't overlap too much with existing members (elemental-magic-slinging Ral, martial combat specialists Elspeth* and Narset, life-draining Sorin)...and that's assuming they'd actually have interest in joining what's essentially a superhero team.
If Saheeli doesn't join in AER (and I kind of doubt she's going to join, given the lack of focus she's been given so far), I think the most likely next additions are Garruk (more of a recurring face than the other beastmaster-types, and the other Lorwyn 5 'walker left out of the Origins 5 has now joined) and, depending on whether we return to Theros or Ravnica first, either Dack or Kaya (who I have a strong hunch will be involved in RTRTR, given the set-up with the Orzhov's shenanigans). Or maybe someone entirely new, like a newly-sparked Amonkhet PW. (Personally, I'd love to see a RB character join because the people in the Gatewatch matter to them, even if their cause doesn't - the party member that sticks around solely because the party has become a family to them has always felt like a reasonable way to get an R/B character on the "good guy" team.)
*Elspeth's a bit tough, because she overlaps a lot with Gideon - who's recently been pushed into the "general"/leader-of-tokens role that she used to occupy - but she also makes perfect sense as a character who'd be willing to join the Gatewatch, especially given one of the few living people that she's close to has now joined as well. I guess it depends what kind of state she's in if/when she gets out of the Underworld. (Alternatively, she actually takes Gideon's place in the Gatewatch because something happened to him at some point in the story - maybe he tries to atone for his past history with the gods by offering himself in her place or something, I dunno.)
Edit: Was gonna ask "why no Story Spotlight 1/5?" but it looks like that's because it's from a story that got a version without a card because it already went up (#1).
Of note, Sram appeared on flavortext in Kaladesh: Fumigate and Wayward Giant. The rest seem to be entirely new.
Also, In the Dead of the Night was apparently one of the stories that got a Story Spotlight card - the AER Story page has updated to include Magic card backs attached to the pages of the stories that have tie-in cards, and it was one of them - though it's notYahenni's Expertise, which had its "normal" version revealed and doesn't have the "Story Spotlight" label on it. I don't think Yahenni themself would rate a Story Spotlight card if Pia Nalaar wasn't one, so...I'm not sure what part of the story is getting a spotlight.
(If the AER Story page is accurate, the set has 9 stories, and the other stories with tie-in cards are #4, #5, #8, and #9 - which, if my math is right, means that only the last two stories will be revealed after their corresponding cards, as opposed to Kaladesh's three: Deadlock Trap, Fateful Showdown, and Confiscation Coup. Which, hopefully, means that slightly less story will be spoiled by the cards, though the big conclusion is still in the same situation.)
(Tarmogoyf could also be Primeval Titan, Kiki-Jiki could also be Thundermaw Hellkite or Bonfire of the Damned.)
I mean, this is assuming there's an actual, equal balance of colors at mythic, which probably isn't going to happen (even without throwing in double-sided cards). But balancing it gave me a framework to build around, so that's how I did it.
Seems quite good in at least two of the three decks that should be getting it - Kynaios and Tiro appreciate having a finisher that takes advantage of all of the land-ramp they've gifted to their opponents over the course of the game, and Saskia is just happy to get a hefty source of damage that hits all of her opponents at once. And, of course, both like having the extra bit of fixing in the early game...and both are in colors that can recur spells to the hand fairly easily, so they can cycle it early and pummel people with it late.
The one downside is that it dies to Phage the Untouchable. And by "it dies," I mean "its owner dies." Not being a "may" ability can be unfortunate. But that's circumvented easily enough if you have a sac outlet, and this is a pretty sweet card outside of those corner cases.
I'm actually a little confused that this is rare - not in terms of complexity, but just because it seems like a great fit in both the artifact deck and the chaos deck, and new cards printed at rare only show up in one deck. (Even in the group hug deck, it's a handy bit of asymmetry to reap the rewards from helping other people advance their board states.)
So in the space of a year, we've gone from having zero BW legendary Clerics to three: Ayli, Tymna, and Ravos. So that's a thing.
Ravos actually pairs pretty well with Tana: a built-in anthem to give her a better shot at trampling through, and of generating more Saprolings when she does so, and then that anthem buffs the newly-produced tokens in turn. Also goes well with Bruse Tarl - because anthem effects and double strike.
Honestly, though, Ravos seems pretty solid in his own right, Partners be damned. That's two solidly useful effects in one package.
Well, this is definitely in the Chaos deck. ...like most chaos cards, it's not really my style, but I still love it conceptually and I'd love to see it played.
...I have no idea why I remember her name when it only showed up once, in a Planeswalker's Guide article, but I do, and I'm happy to see her. Like the card, too. If she doesn't end up fitting in a Commander deck for me, I'd be glad to have her in my 60-card Grixis deck that's pretty much all about cheating high mana costs (delve, emerge, etc).
Also, the fact that she's a Tarkir character means that they reached fairly recent for some of their commanders, which means that the Taigam card people have been wanting is a legitimate possibility - I'm guessing he'd be the UW Partner legend.
I think Kruphix's Insight was the first Uncharted Realms story I read, and it's still one of my favorites. Whether or not I end up getting the chaos deck, I feel like I've got to get a copy of Kydele, just on principle.
Also, she plays rather well with Glint-Eye Nephilim, which had seemed like the Nephilim that was the weakest fit for its deck's theme (Yore-Tiller doesn't do much with artifacts, but it does play well with Silas Renn). Seems like another point in favor of them being included in these decks.
So usually we get 10 new options for Commander. This time we get... 5 new Allied color options, 15 new Enemy color options, 20 new Shard options, 20 new Wedge options and 25 new 4 color options! (If my math is correct )
Holy moly. So many possible decks to build... I love it!
I count 25 shard, 40 wedge, 40 four-color - provided you mix-and-match between decks, anyway. (Most of those probably won't be very good, but that's the mathematical total, as best I can tell.)
It's looking like I'm gonna have to decide between the non-Green and non-White decks, which is...pretty much how I was expecting things to go. (Not a fan of group hug, not a fan of aggro in commander, not a fan of not counter-based commanders or of not playing Red. Neither artifacts nor chaos are 100% my playstyle, but I can see either being fun, depending on what I think of the face cards. Partner's cool in theory, but the Partners they've shown so far don't particularly inspire me.)
Of all planes to have a glut of native walkers (aside from the massive Dominaria), Ravnica and Kaladesh both make sense to me: Ravnica's a literal city-plane, so I'm betting its population is larger than most other known planes by several orders of magnitude. More people means more possible spark-holders, means more possible ignited sparks. Kaladesh isn't populous to the same degree, but Ghirapur is still big enough to need trains for public transportation, and the city doesn't comprise the entire population of the plane, so they're probably still closer to the top-end in that regard.
But more than that, it's uniquely intertwined with aether, the actual material of the Blind Eternities (admittedly, I can't remember whether this is more canon or more fanon, but it sounds right) - I get the sense that it's somehow closer to the Eternities than most planes are. So it makes sense (at least in my mind) that it could have a higher ratio of sparks-per-sapient-being than other planes would, the same way I can buy Rashmi being able to invent a transporter that can move things through the Blind Eternities when nobody else on the known planes has managed it in millennia.
...I mean, that's definitely a justification and not the actual reasoning the game and story people used, but neither of those cases really stretches my disbelief. Innistrad's another story, but it's not like Vronos's (former) existence is going to be a major plot point going forward or anything.
I vary in how much I try to imagine voices in written fiction, but it's never really been something I've done for Magic story: for the most part, voices for me come attached to faces of people that I picture as written characters (if I'm imagining what they look like, I might as well imagine what they sound like), and we already have images of most Magic characters' faces (varied though they may be).
That said, if I did do that for Magic, I'd use...well, in the case of Nissa, Jace, and Liliana, I'd just use the voices from their respective trailers (BFZ for Nissa, SOI for Jace, EMN for Liliana). Ajani would probably be Keith David, with a similar sort of intonation as what he used for the Arbiter. Gideon would be...pretty much exactly what you wrote, actually. I'm not sure about Chandra - everything I come up with is either too childish or too mature. I'm pretty sure I'd know what Dovin's voice should sound like if I heard it, but I'm having trouble putting words or thoughts to what that sound would be. Haven't really got a good enough grasp on anyone else to even hazard a guess.
Surprised to see Arcbound Ravager and Wurmcoil Engine, but they're very good artifacts and I guess they're not quite plane-specific enough to disqualify on that basis. Also like that Modular and Sunburst don't have their reminder text on Masterpieces with them: if mythics will leave off mechanic reminder text for space, super-mythics certainly should. And in the case of Ravager, it lets them fit in flavor text, which is a plus.
Alphabetically, #43 and #45 fall between, respectively, Ornithopter and Pithing Needle, and Pithing Needle and Platinum Angel.
There are only four artifacts between the latter two, and one of those is on the reserved list (Planar Gate). The others are Plague Boiler, Plague Myr, and...Planar Portal. Would they include spoilers in the Masterpieces?
(Meanwhile, there's a pretty decent number of solid artifacts that could slot in at #43, including Panoptic Mirror and Pentad Prism...but it's also the slot where any artifact whose name starts with "Phyrexian" would go. So that's a thing.)
Edit: The main reason I doubt that the missing spaces are for AER cards is because the Gearhulks had their own space at the beginning of the Inventions list in KLD, separated from the alphabetical ordering of the rest. I'd expect any new cards in the AER Inventions to follow the same pattern, not be smack-dab in the middle.Edit #2: Welp, that's been proven wrong. Forgot about the color aspect of the Gearhulks. *shrug* Oh well.
As things stand, Tezzeret probably isn't a card for me, since I'm a casual player who (unless I get a lot of cards in Tezz's colors that play into that theme at the AER prerelease) is unlikely to have an artifact deck in his colors to put him in. (Though that would change if I get around to buying the Breya commander precon.) But it still seems like a solid card to me, and I expect it's going to look better and better as more of the set is revealed.
Gideon: Paladin (or Fighter, I guess, but he seems more the Paladin archetype to me)
Jace: Wizard
Nissa: Druid
Chandra: Sorcerer
Liliana: Warlock
Ajani: Cleric
Which leaves...
Rogue: Dack or Kaya
Ranger: Arlinn or Domri
Monk: Narset
Barbarian: Garruk? (He's arguably more of a Ranger, but he's really the only existing PW that could fit this archetype)
Fighter (or Paladin): Elspeth?
Bard: ??? (someone new?)
...in all seriousness, I guess I just have trouble seeing the Gatewatch being pushed to having a character for every color pair - not when Liliana's such an odd fit already, and not when it's only been a couple of years since we got representatives for all 10 color pairs in general (and less than a year since we got up to 10 current reps, with Narset replacing the dead Venser, and Nahiri and Daretti replacing long-since-shifted Ajani and Sarkhan). More likely, further expansions would go toward filling a niche that the team was previously lacking, like how Ajani gives them a healer.
In that vein: Nissa covers the "nature mage" spot, which makes Koth unlikely, but any of Domri/Arlinn/Garruk could cover the "beastmaster" side of Green, which the Gatewatch doesn't really have represented. Beyond that, there's an obvious space for an artificer (Saheeli, Daretti, or maybe Karn) and a rogue-type (as mentioned, Dack or Kaya). After that, it starts getting tougher finding 'walkers that aren't too niche (fault-seer Dovin), but also don't overlap too much with existing members (elemental-magic-slinging Ral, martial combat specialists Elspeth* and Narset, life-draining Sorin)...and that's assuming they'd actually have interest in joining what's essentially a superhero team.
If Saheeli doesn't join in AER (and I kind of doubt she's going to join, given the lack of focus she's been given so far), I think the most likely next additions are Garruk (more of a recurring face than the other beastmaster-types, and the other Lorwyn 5 'walker left out of the Origins 5 has now joined) and, depending on whether we return to Theros or Ravnica first, either Dack or Kaya (who I have a strong hunch will be involved in RTRTR, given the set-up with the Orzhov's shenanigans). Or maybe someone entirely new, like a newly-sparked Amonkhet PW. (Personally, I'd love to see a RB character join because the people in the Gatewatch matter to them, even if their cause doesn't - the party member that sticks around solely because the party has become a family to them has always felt like a reasonable way to get an R/B character on the "good guy" team.)
*Elspeth's a bit tough, because she overlaps a lot with Gideon - who's recently been pushed into the "general"/leader-of-tokens role that she used to occupy - but she also makes perfect sense as a character who'd be willing to join the Gatewatch, especially given one of the few living people that she's close to has now joined as well. I guess it depends what kind of state she's in if/when she gets out of the Underworld. (Alternatively, she actually takes Gideon's place in the Gatewatch because something happened to him at some point in the story - maybe he tries to atone for his past history with the gods by offering himself in her place or something, I dunno.)
Edit: Was gonna ask "why no Story Spotlight 1/5?" but it looks like that's because it's from a story that got a version without a card because it already went up (#1).
Also, In the Dead of the Night was apparently one of the stories that got a Story Spotlight card - the AER Story page has updated to include Magic card backs attached to the pages of the stories that have tie-in cards, and it was one of them - though it's not Yahenni's Expertise, which had its "normal" version revealed and doesn't have the "Story Spotlight" label on it. I don't think Yahenni themself would rate a Story Spotlight card if Pia Nalaar wasn't one, so...I'm not sure what part of the story is getting a spotlight.
(If the AER Story page is accurate, the set has 9 stories, and the other stories with tie-in cards are #4, #5, #8, and #9 - which, if my math is right, means that only the last two stories will be revealed after their corresponding cards, as opposed to Kaladesh's three: Deadlock Trap, Fateful Showdown, and Confiscation Coup. Which, hopefully, means that slightly less story will be spoiled by the cards, though the big conclusion is still in the same situation.)
W - Archangel of Thune, Linvala, Keeper of Silence
U - Vendilion Clique, Omniscience
B - Liliana of the Veil, Griselbrand
R - Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Past in Flames
G - Tarmogoyf, Craterhoof Behemoth
Multicolored - Geist of Saint Traft, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Olivia Voldaren, Borborygmos Enraged, Voice of Resurgence
Double-sided (potentially) - Huntmaster of the Fells, Garruk Relentless?
(Tarmogoyf could also be Primeval Titan, Kiki-Jiki could also be Thundermaw Hellkite or Bonfire of the Damned.)
I mean, this is assuming there's an actual, equal balance of colors at mythic, which probably isn't going to happen (even without throwing in double-sided cards). But balancing it gave me a framework to build around, so that's how I did it.
I'm actually a little confused that this is rare - not in terms of complexity, but just because it seems like a great fit in both the artifact deck and the chaos deck, and new cards printed at rare only show up in one deck. (Even in the group hug deck, it's a handy bit of asymmetry to reap the rewards from helping other people advance their board states.)
Ravos actually pairs pretty well with Tana: a built-in anthem to give her a better shot at trampling through, and of generating more Saprolings when she does so, and then that anthem buffs the newly-produced tokens in turn. Also goes well with Bruse Tarl - because anthem effects and double strike.
Honestly, though, Ravos seems pretty solid in his own right, Partners be damned. That's two solidly useful effects in one package.
...I have no idea why I remember her name when it only showed up once, in a Planeswalker's Guide article, but I do, and I'm happy to see her. Like the card, too. If she doesn't end up fitting in a Commander deck for me, I'd be glad to have her in my 60-card Grixis deck that's pretty much all about cheating high mana costs (delve, emerge, etc).
Also, the fact that she's a Tarkir character means that they reached fairly recent for some of their commanders, which means that the Taigam card people have been wanting is a legitimate possibility - I'm guessing he'd be the UW Partner legend.
Also, she plays rather well with Glint-Eye Nephilim, which had seemed like the Nephilim that was the weakest fit for its deck's theme (Yore-Tiller doesn't do much with artifacts, but it does play well with Silas Renn). Seems like another point in favor of them being included in these decks.
I count 25 shard, 40 wedge, 40 four-color - provided you mix-and-match between decks, anyway. (Most of those probably won't be very good, but that's the mathematical total, as best I can tell.)
It's looking like I'm gonna have to decide between the non-Green and non-White decks, which is...pretty much how I was expecting things to go. (Not a fan of group hug, not a fan of aggro in commander, not a fan of not counter-based commanders or of not playing Red. Neither artifacts nor chaos are 100% my playstyle, but I can see either being fun, depending on what I think of the face cards. Partner's cool in theory, but the Partners they've shown so far don't particularly inspire me.)
But more than that, it's uniquely intertwined with aether, the actual material of the Blind Eternities (admittedly, I can't remember whether this is more canon or more fanon, but it sounds right) - I get the sense that it's somehow closer to the Eternities than most planes are. So it makes sense (at least in my mind) that it could have a higher ratio of sparks-per-sapient-being than other planes would, the same way I can buy Rashmi being able to invent a transporter that can move things through the Blind Eternities when nobody else on the known planes has managed it in millennia.
...I mean, that's definitely a justification and not the actual reasoning the game and story people used, but neither of those cases really stretches my disbelief. Innistrad's another story, but it's not like Vronos's (former) existence is going to be a major plot point going forward or anything.
That said, if I did do that for Magic, I'd use...well, in the case of Nissa, Jace, and Liliana, I'd just use the voices from their respective trailers (BFZ for Nissa, SOI for Jace, EMN for Liliana). Ajani would probably be Keith David, with a similar sort of intonation as what he used for the Arbiter. Gideon would be...pretty much exactly what you wrote, actually. I'm not sure about Chandra - everything I come up with is either too childish or too mature. I'm pretty sure I'd know what Dovin's voice should sound like if I heard it, but I'm having trouble putting words or thoughts to what that sound would be. Haven't really got a good enough grasp on anyone else to even hazard a guess.