Gatewatch
The Gatewatch is a group of planeswalkers initially allied together to fight the Eldrazi on Zendikar. Named for their defense of Sea Gate.
The Gatewatch is a group of planeswalkers initially allied together to fight the Eldrazi on Zendikar. Named for their defense of Sea Gate. Their commitment is to protect the people of the Multiverse from threats that no one else can handle. From Battle for Zendikar up until War of the Spark, the Gatewatch became the center of Magic's storyline.
Membership
The group was founded by Gideon Jura, Jace Beleren, Chandra Nalaar, and Nissa Revane.
Additionally, Lavinia, Jace's assistant on Ravnica, is in charge of maintaining the Gatewatch's headquarters on that plane and knows that they are planeswalkers.
History
Zendikar
The Gatewatch was formed after the founding members together defeated the demon planeswalker Ob Nixilis on Zendikar. The four planeswalkers realized that they were helpless against large threats on their own, but that they could stand against just about any force in the Multiverse by working together. Thus they swore an oath to stand together and the Gatewatch was created. Jace devised a plan to bind the Eldrazi Titans Kozilek and Ulamog to Zendikar, drawing the bulk of the Titans into the plane so that their energy could be dispersed into Zendikar, killing them in the process. Helped by a massive fire spell of Chandra, they succeeded.
After the defeat of the Eldrazi titans, Jace and his friends were berated by Ugin for killing the ancient creatures. Ugin implied there could be consequences for the multiverse and that Sorin Markov (one of the other original Eldrazi planeswalker opponents) would be less forgiving. After consultation with his friends, Jace decided to investigate Sorin's whereabouts on his homeplane of Innistrad, and recruit him as an ally against Nicol Bolas and other interplanar threats.
Innistrad
On Innistrad, Jace found only madness that affected the entire plane that soon proved to be the influence of the last Eldrazi Titan Emrakul. Aided by the planeswalker Tamiyo, he returned to Zendikar to bring the rest of the Gatewatch to fight Emrakul. When Liliana Vess came to their aid with a Zombie army, her reception by the Gatewatch was poor, especially since Nissa felt the dark magic radiating from the Chain Veil. While that power protected her against Emrakul's insidious influence and allowed her to attack the Titan directly, it also took a great toll on her body, leaving her near death.
When she reawakened, Emrakul had been sealed in Innistrad's moon by the Gatewatch and Tamiyo, and her wounds had been healed by the other planeswalkers. Seeing that a group of allies could be useful for her long-time plans, she decided to join the Gatewatch, albeit to direct them for her plans.
Ravnica
In the three months that followed, the Gatewatch made its headquarters on Ravnica. Thanks to the aid of Tamiyo, they received an emissary from the Consulate of Kaladesh, the Vedalken Dovin Baan. The Vedalken wanted to hire the Gatewatch to protect an Inventor's fair that would take place in Ghirapur. Liliana, however, quickly made clear that the Gatewatch intended to combat other planeswalkers and similar extraplanar threats, not local unrest. Additionally, several influential members of the Azorius Senate of Ravnica had been petrified, leaving Jace to believe that Vraska, a rival planeswalker, could have returned. When they discovered that Chandra and Liliana had vanished, they suspected that she might have planeswalked to Kaladesh. Nissa volunteered to find them.
Kaladesh
After Liliana discovered that Tezzeret was active on the plane, she alerted Jace and Gideon, who traveled to Kaladesh and met with Nissa and Chandra, as well as their new ally Ajani Goldmane. Together, the group went into the arena where Tezzeret was about to execute Renegade Prime Pia Nalaar in a quicksmithing match. When the planeswalkers confronted him, Tezzeret announced the end of the Inventor's Fair and retreated to a skyship. Discovering that their presence had been used as a distraction to confiscate the inventions displayed at the Fair and to take the inventors prisoner, the Gatewatch swore to uncover what Tezzeret had planned.
The Gatewatch aided the Renegades in their rebellion against the Consulate. They were helped by Ajani Goldmane, who afterward joined the team. Despite Ajani's plea that they should further amass allies before confronting Tezzeret and his master Nicol Bolas, the rest of the group decided to follow the artificer to Amonkhet.
Amonkhet
On Amonkhet, the Gatewatch discovered that Bolas was creating an army of Eternals; highly trained fighting specialists which had been zombified while keeping their skills intact. When they confronted the dragon, they were soundly defeated. Each one fled away on their own. Most of them managed to retreat to Dominaria, which Ajani had suggested as a gathering point. However, Jace became trapped on Ixalan by the power of the Immortal Sun.
Dominaria
The shock of losing Jace as well as the anger towards Liliana's actions caused Nissa to leave the Gatewatch. Chandra, realizing the Gatewatch was not strong enough, also quickly left Dominaria. Thus, only Gideon and Liliana were left to confront the demon Belzenlok on their own, because defeating him would free Liliana's potential that would be needed in their fight against Bolas.
Gideon and Liliana would later board onto the new Weatherlight to fight against the Cabal, ruled by Belzenlok. Later, Chandra regrouped with them. The Weatherlight's crew had wanted to find Karn, and Chandra had wanted to find Jaya Ballard, and all of this coincided in Yavimaya.
Jace, who managed to escape from Ixalan due to the Immortal Sun's removal, managed to locate his friends in the Weatherlight. After he told them the plans of Bolas, he went away to help Ajani to recruit more people.
The three members of Gatewatch in the Weatherlight (Chandra, Gideon, and Liliana), along with the other boarding members of the new Weatherlight, notably the planeswalkers Teferi, Karn, and Jaya, managed to defeat the Cabal's Stronghold and kill Belzenlok. Then Teferi made his Oath and joined the Gatewatch. Jaya and Karn refrained from officially joining. But all of them left Dominaria to find Jace, except Liliana who fell under the control of Nicol Bolas due to her pact with the demons that he had brokered.
War of the Spark
The Gatewatch plotted to engage Bolas on Ravnica. Little did they suspect that Bolas had not only accounted for their interference but was practically relying on it. When they traveled to Ravnica for the final confrontation, they immediately became trapped there due to Bolas's use of the Immortal Sun. Alongside many other planeswalkers and Ravnicans, they fought against the Eternals of Bolas' Dreadhorde.
During the invasion, the trapped planeswalkers got together with Ravnican leaders to strategize. At Jace's recommendation, they decided to split up into teams to focus on specific tasks. Gideon, Aurelia, Angrath, and Huatli led a massive force of planeswalkers and Boros, Izzet, and Simic troops into battle against the God-Eternal Rhonas, who was leading a battalion of Eternals to destroy the gathered opposition. Gideon and Aurelia led the aerial units, while Angrath led the ground units. After battling his way to Rhonas, Gideon was able to kill the god, stabbing him in the eye with the Blackblade and draining his essence. Rhonas' lazotep shell collapsed to the ground, an empty husk.
Later, Gideon instructed Chandra to reactivate the Immortal Sun (which she had disabled), intending to use Bolas' trap against him. He rode his pegasus toward the dragon, only for the God-Eternal Oketra to shoot the pegasus down. However, the demon lord Rakdos caught him and brought him within striking distance of Bolas. He struck Bolas in the head with Blackblade, but the sword broke against the dragon's flesh; Bolas revealed that he had enchanted Blackblade so that it would never be able to hurt another elder dragon again.
Meanwhile, Jace, Jaya, Teferi, and Vivien had volunteered to assassinate Liliana. Jace had a lot of conflicting feelings about their mission: rationally, he knew that it was the right thing to do, but he still cared for her and wished that there was a way to help her. When they found Liliana, Teferi warped time around her, slowing her ability to react, defend herself, or strike back at her attackers. This allowed Jaya and Vivien to badly wound her with fire, arrows, and animal spirits, although the Onakke spirits in Liliana's Chain Veil protected her. Nonetheless, they almost succeeded, but Bolas stepped in and saved Liliana by destroying the buildings they were standing on. Fortunately, Teferi saved himself and the other three planeswalkers by slowing their falls.
After Liliana repented, Bolas used the power of the demons' contract against her. Gideon sacrificed himself to save her, using his hieromancy to take the contract and its lethal effects upon himself. When Chandra tried to kill Liliana (believing she'd killed Gideon), Jace stopped her by explaining the situation. After Bolas' defeat, Jace was telepathically contacted by Ugin, who came to take Bolas to the Meditation Realm to prevent him from coming back to life on Ravnica. At Ugin's request, Jace used an illusion to hide the fact that Ugin had planeswalked away with Bolas' body, making everyone believe that the corpse had disintegrated instead.
Coincident with the events of War, Kaya joined and Nissa rejoined the Gatewatch. The survivors were present during the Planewide Celebration that followed their victory, and held a memorial service for Gideon on Theros, but soon after most went their separate ways.
Karn, Ajani, and Teferi travelled to Femeref to discuss the growing threat of New Phyrexia.
Innistrad
By request of Arlinn Kord, Chandra, Teferi and Kaya travelled to Innistrad to fight the coming of the Eternal Night. Failing to do so they formed a resistance group to battle Olivia Voldaren's vampires and sought the help of Sorin Markov. Together, they managed to help the locals in restoring the normal day-night cycle. Before their departure, Teferi urged Arlinn to be on guard against the return of an old enemy, the Phyrexians.
Dominaria United
Ajani was revealed as a Phyrexian sleeper agent and killed Jaya Ballard during the second Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria. He disabled and took Karn to New Phyrexia, leaving the Gatewatch without their strategic commander.
Brother's War
Teferi, Saheeli and Kaya resolved to find a solution to the Phyrexian problem in the past, and installed the Temporal Anchor in Urza's Tower. Here, they were joined by Jodah, Wrenn, Elspeth and Vivien Reid. They devised a plan to mobilize Kaldheim and Ixalan. Meanwhile, Jace was on Ravnica lobbying for support from the guilds, while Chandra had gone to Zendikar to contact Nissa, who acquiesced to this event. Saheeli intended to spearhead the defense of Kaladesh. Information dispensed by Tezzeret showed them that the Mirran camp on New Phyrexia itself, led by Koth, was still active.
An attack on the Temporal Anchor left them without Teferi as a commander, but further planeswalkers from recent years joined the strike force, including Vraska, The Wanderer, Kaito Shizuki, Tyvar Kell, and Lukka. Together, they planned a counter-attack on New Phyrexia, in collaboration with the forces of Koth and Urabrask. They planned to use the Sylex to destroy Realmbreaker, and Elspeth Tirel offered to guide them there.
Against the Phyrexians
New Phyrexia's planar defense proved formidable, as it scattered the strike team, several of whom were unconscious upon landing. Ironically, none of them were compleated that way: Vraska was captured but fought for hours, Nahiri was infected while defending Kaito, and Jace was infected trying to rescue Vraska. Lukka and Nissa were isolated and due to Lukka's eludha with a Phyrexian beast, he was quickly compleated and hunted down Nissa. In the Seedcore, Elspeth took a detonating Sylex off the plane, marking the end of the Gatewatch's mission as a failure.
With the covert strike unsuccessful, the remaining Gatewatch prepared for invasion to varying degrees of success. Liliana on Arcavios and Ral on Ravnica managed to deflect them completely with many casualties, while Kaldheim (Tyvar), Kamigawa (Kaya, Kaito and the Wanderer), Ikoria (Vivien), Ixalan (Huatli), and Kaladesh (Saheeli) had planar defenders that struggled to contain the invasion. Chandra and Wrenn went to New Phyrexia in a second attempt to refuse Realmbreaker, which was successful with Elspeth's return as an archangel. Wrenn was able to reach Teferi on Zhalfir and open paths for all the plane's angels to pour in. The operation was a success, with Norn's demise neutralizing the Phyrexians across the multiverse, but the Desparkening cost many Gatewatch members their spark and also opened omenpaths across the planes, putting the mission statement and the Gatewatch's purpose in doubt.
Relations with other Planeswalkers
Other temporary allies during the War of the Spark that had no contact before or further contact afterward are:
In the cards
Incomplete Founder Cycle
The founding members of the Gatewatch represented four of the five colors, lacking only black. This gave the impression of an incomplete cycle, although the Gatewatch is a set of thematically linked characters, rather than a mechanically linked set. Additionally, the only black planeswalker present, Ob Nixilis, directly opposed the group. That circumstance led to the humorous observation that Ob Nixilis was previously known as Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath, thus “completing” the cycle of oaths.
Joining the Gatewatch
Any future members of the Gatewatch will have an “Oath” card printed to represent their induction to the group.
Liliana was the first one who joined the Gatewatch after its formation. She and her oath are both Black, which completed the cycle. Note that the first five members of the Gatewatch are also the planeswalkers featured in Magic Origins.
Ajani was the first multi-colored member of the Gatewatch. His oath was also multicolored.
In Standard
When the Gatewatch storyline was started, R&D began with the assumption that the members of the Gatewatch should always be represented on planeswalker cards in Standard. Starting with Hour of Devastation they will pull back significantly on how often Gatewatch planeswalkers appear. They'll appear when it's important but at a much slower rate.
Gallery
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The Gatewatch fights Emrakul. Art by Aleksi Briclot. -
The Gatewatch strike team arrives on New Phyrexia.
