MTG: The Ship That Beat Phyrexia- The Weatherlight Breakdown
It’s the ship that started the biggest Magic storyline and beat Phyrexia… until it didn’t. We break down the Weatherlight.
The skyship Weatherlight was the single, most powerful creation of the artificer Urza. It was the culmination of Urza’s Legacy, and, for a time, was responsible for holding the Phyrexians at bay, ultimately destroying Yawgmoth the Ineffable, Father of Machines, and source of the Phyrexians.
Since then the Weatherlight has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times until finally it was at last corrupted by the very beings it was meant to fight. But before it was completed, the Weatherlight had adventures throughout the planes.
The Weatherlight – Capabilities and Construction
Built in the Tolarian Academy, the Weatherlight carries Dominaria’s heart, symbolically speaking. It was constructed out of ancient Thran metal, whose dark power was melted down and forged, in the mountainous region of Shiv, by industrious viashino into the Weatherlight’s frame. Multani, the Maro-Sorcerer of the sentient Yavimaya forest brought the Weatherseed, a seed of the oldest magnigoth tree and the heart of Yavimaya herself. The magic of Tolaria suffused the Weatherlight’s being. And at the Weatherlight’s core, a powerstone infused with white mana from Serra’s Realm, crafted before that realm collapsed.
All these came together in the form of a 300-foot ship imbued with the power of Dominaria. Most of the ship’s 40 crewmembers tended to the ship’s massive, complex engines. These powerful engines, powered by the powerstone at the core, gave the ship a number of advantages:
The Weatherlight could levitate, travel across the planes, and could convert mana into energy to continually power itself. It could also generate a “storm shield” to protect from the elements of myriad planes. Though this protection could only go so far.
At top speeds, the Weatherlight could reach up to 110 mph, or 40 mph in full reverse. The ship’s sails helped steer at low velocity, but at higher speeds, they shifted into place as airfoils, allowing the ship to maneuver swiftly through whatever environs it needed.
A Perfect Ship and a Perfect Human
The Weatherlight was created as part of Urza’s legacy. The master artificer, seeking a way to defeat his mortal enemy, Yawgmoth, and the Phyrexians he spawned, designed the perfect ship. But the schematics he had crafted were not enough — the perfect ship needed the perfect captain. To this end, Urza set out to breed a genetically perfect captain, you know, as one would expect an all-powerful artificer to do. Urza’s methods were perhaps a little extreme. The artificer put humans into zones of accelerated time to help speed the process along. But eventually, Urza realized he must breed humans in real-time, and so experimented on the Capashen Clan of Benalia, which eventually led to Gerrard Capashen.
Meanwhile, Urza kept his ship safe throughout the generations, entrusting it to a wealthy family in Zhalfir. However, a powerful artifact like the Weatherlight can stay hidden for only so long. And eventually, not long after Gerrard joined the crew, the Weatherlight was drawn into the Phyrexian invasion efforts.
The ship planeshifted to Rath, the Phyrexian staging-ground plane. There it dueled with another skyship, fighting to keep hold of the rest of Urza’s Legacy set of artifacts. The ship became infamous to the Phyrexians. It was instrumental in liberating the people of Mercadia. It out-maneuvered the Phyrexian skyship Predator. Over the course of Phyrexia’s invasion of Dominaria, the Weatherlight was destroyed and reborn as a completely sentient being, only to be destroyed again as it became Urza’s ultimate weapon and was used to destroy Yawgmoth, turning Karn into a Planeswalker and forever saving Dominaria.
Phyrexia Again
Right up until the Phyrexians invaded again. The Weatherlight, previously destroyed, was excavated once more. All that was left of the mighty vessel was the Thran metal skeleton, and its engines. A team of heroes rebuilt the Weatherlight, and though they could not replicate the planar travel abilities, they could use the ship to defend Dominaria once more.
Until the ship crashed in Otaria in a massive battle, and the ship, also a sentient being, was completed, and turned, at last, to the side of the Phyrexians. Though the ship’s original powerstone was removed, the Compleated Weatherlight now threatens to make All into One.
At least until it gets blown up again
