Urza

Urza, known as the Academy Headmaster or the Lord High Artificer, was the main anti-hero protagonist of Magic: The Gathering from the Antiquities expansion all the way to the Apocalypse, and his soul lives on through Karn to the present day, making him one of the overarching protagonists of the entire game. He is an immensely powerful Planeswalker from the continent of Tersiare on the plane of Dominaria, with a knack for almost villainous schemes and a contempt for Phyrexia.
==Biography==
===Early years===
Urza's birth is considered year 0 in Argivian Reckoning years, the MTG equivalent of BC/AD. He was born on the first day, while his younger brother Mishra was born on the last. Early in their lives, their parents died, and they ended up studying artifice with Tocasia.
===Antiquities===
Studying with Tocasia, the brothers researched the artifacts of the fallen Thran empire of ancient times, and made several important discoveries and inventions, most notably the Ornithopter, the flying machine; and the Caves of Koilos, an ancient Thran ruin with many artifacts and a gate to the mechanical hell known as Phyrexia. Inside the caves, the brothers found a Thran Powerstone. They both tugged at it with all their might, for both wanted it to study, ultimately splitting it in two halves, the Mightstone, Urza's half, and the Weakstone, Mishra's half. The blast severely injured the brothers and killed the  accompanying Tocasia.
Meanwhile, after Urza left the caves in grief, Mishra ventured deeper into the caves and came face-to-face with the Phyrexians, who corrupted him and made him a general for their next attack on Dominaria.
Urza ended up wed to Princess Kayla bin-Kroog of Yotia after impressing her father with his clockwork mechanical skills, but did not love her. Rather, he just wanted to have her Thran Tome to carry on his mentor's legacy. The same thing happened to Mishra in the Fallaji desert, and when they crossed each other, they went to war. This epic war came to a head in the Argothian Forest, where Urza found of his brother's fate of being corrupted by black mana and evil energy, and blew up the continent of Tersiare with his Golgothian Sylex in a fit of rage, disconnecting Dominaria from the rest of the multiverse, sending it into a millenia-long Ice Age, and igniting Urza's latent Planeswalker spark, which manifested in the form of the powerstone halves that took the place of his eyes, among other things.
===Urza's Block===
Urza soon met Xantcha, a Phyrexian sleeper agent, that is, a fully flesh Phyrexian with none of the machine parts that most have, who had gone against her creator Gix, and who wanted back her Heartstone, the closest a Phyrexian has to a soul, back from Gix's clutches to be truly free. The two of them, unaware of each other's backstories, became inseperable friends, traveling across the Multiverse for countless centuries, until the time came to go to Phyrexia. Urza created a machine-dragon to attack, but failed and was tainted by Yawgmoth, leader of the plane. Fortunately, the Heartstone was retrieved, killing Xantcha in the process, and Serra managed to purify Urza, but she couldn't stop the Phyrexians from overtaking her plane, until it was collapsed into a Powerstone to power the Weatherlight, which will soon be described.
Urza then created a prestigious wizarding school, the Tolarian Academy, on the isle of Tolaria, secretly in hopes of figuring out how to deal with Phyrexia. He created Karn, a silver golem, as a time-traveling agent after realizing that silver can pass through time unscathed, and used the Heartstone to power him. He also created countless other artifacts known as the Legacy, which together would purge the darkness in the world when the time came to destroy Phyrexia. Among the artifacts were the Weatherlight, a planeswalking airship that was once meant to be helmed by Jhoira before she passed the rights to the ship to Sisay. Another was Gerrard, the product of the Bloodline Project, which was Urza controlling all the marriage on the plane for generations because he was godlike and got away with it, in hopes of creating the Chosen One. There was another Bloodline Project to create the Metathran, which were soldiers meant to back him up powered by Thran magic. Karn's time-traveling experiments ended up eventually warping Tolaria's timespace into areas where time moved really fast or really slow, leading to Tolaria's demise at the hands of K'rrick, a sleeper agent who had eons to prepare an attack while Urza had mere minutes. Gerrard was soon enlisted to be the First Mate of the Weatherlight, and thus his journey to accept his destiny began.
===Weatherlight, Tempest block, Masques block===
Main article: Gerrard Capashen
===Phyrexian Invasion===
When the Weatherlight and its crew, Legacy in tow, came back to Dominaria for the final battle with Yawgmoth, Urza was waiting. He had enlisted 8 other Planeswalkers in giant mech suits, and he and them together were the Nine Titans. Yawgmoth successfully fused together his artificial plane of Rath with Dominaria to get his troops onto the scene, and he sent Tsabo Tavoc to command them.
One of the Nine Titans, Tevesh Szat, betrayed the others and killed several of them. Urza planned for this to happen, so it would be morally just to use his soul as a bomb to destroy Phyrexia. This was successful, but not before Urza went there and saw the corpse of Mishra, feeling guilt and grief for all he caused one last time. Yawgmoth, now so powerful he had to appear in a form comprehensible to the fabric of reality, took on the form of a cloud of death and escaped to Dominaria. Urza was soon enslaved by him, and forced to fight Gerrard. Gerrard decapitated him, but as an almighty Planeswalker, Urza survived as a head and told Gerrard this was part of the plan. He told Gerrard to use the white mana in the Null Moon to blast Yawgmoth, but that failed to leave a scratch. As one final attempt at victory, Urza said to gather all the pieces of the Legacy, most of which were in Karn, who was one of them, and make them touch to destroy Yawgmoth. Gerrard went to the ship, and touched Karn with himself and Urza's powerstone eyes, while standing on the ship, with the rest of the pieces inside Karn. This created an explosion not seen since the Sylex blast, killing Urza and Gerrard, as well as annihilating Yawgmoth. Karn absorbed the powerstones and inherited Urza's spark, and became his living legacy, and the Weatherlight sunk deep into the sea, not salvaged for many more centuries.
==Personality==
Urza is a cunning, scheming, but just jerk who might very well be a villain with good intentions. However, he did destroy Phyrexia and Yawgmoth, which solidifies his anti-hero status.
==Trivia==
*He is one of the most iconic and beloved characters in all of Magic.
*His driving of the whole plot with his plans makes him very unique as a protagonist.
*He is much more of an anti-hero than fellow Magic Big Good Gideon Jura-Blackblade.
Category:Magic
Category:Lethal
Category:Genius
Category:Deities
Category:Inventors
Category:Jerks
Category:On & Off
Category:Anti-Heroes
Category:Mentors
Category:Big Good
Category:The Hero
Category:Male
Category:Misanthropes
Category:Bigger Good
Category:Friend of a Villain
Category:Related to Villain
Category:Tragic
Category:Passionate Learners
Category:Mentally Ill
Category:True Neutral