Magic: The Gathering - Rise of the Gatewatch: A Visual History

Magic: The Gathering - A Visual History #1

by Wizards of the Coast, Jenna Helland (Foreword)

A visual history of Magic: The Gathering's Gatewatch Mythology

Over the course of its 25-year history, Magic: The Gathering—the world’s first and most popular trading card game—has redefined the fantasy genre through its exploration of diverse, fantastic worlds. And traversing those worlds are Planeswalkers, heroes who have sworn to defend the Multiverse from harm. Magic: The Gathering: Rise of the Gatewatch is a visual history and celebration of Magic’s first team of Planeswalkers—Jace Beleren, Ajani Goldmane, Gideon Jura, Kaya, Chandra Nalaar, Nissa Revane, Liliana Vess, and Teferi. The Gatewatch’s character histories, from their origins through their final confrontation with Nicol Bolas, are presented here via the very best card, packaging, and convention-exclusive artwork, all of it reproduced together here for the first time, some seen for the first time outside of the card frame. Rise of the Gatewatch is a giftable visual reference guide sure to appeal to new and longtime Magic fans alike.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Art

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 23, 2018

About the author

Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.

Reviews

[Alexa (Alexa Loves Books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who is not too familiar with the world and characters, this felt like a good way to dip my toes into it! I definitely left off feeling intrigued about everything, and would like to explore more through novels.

4 stars for art and character concepts as an experience, but 3 stars on the whole for the worthiness of owning this. So 3.5?

[Matevž · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a veteran (now retired ;) ) MTG player who used to devour all the books about the brother's war, Urza and knew most of the cards by hard.

This book was meant to help me get up to speed with the new characters & story in mtg since I met them in a few online versions of the game. In a way the book succeeds at this, through the use of wonderful art and details.

But in a way it also fails since it provides little to no details about the characters - you get a few sentences about their backstory, a few about how they were designed and the general idea about the great conflict at Gatewatch. The book could achieve a lot more with a few more pages of text and story.

[Jasper Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful Art, Not Enough Story Telling

It was nice finally having a brief history of the gate watch in one place. Unfortunately, I wish there was more story behind it to go along with the pictures.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a pretty new MTG player - I've only been playing for a little over three months - and I bought this because the book looked like it would be beautifully illustrated basic overview of the decade long saga of the Gatewatch. I've been reading the lore - both books and web articles - and I was mostly looking for something that would fill in the gaps until I actually got to those stories and could dive into them in detail.

On the front of beautiful artwork, Rise of the Gatewatch is a winner. Mostly focusing on featuring cards, this was a pretty good intro to illustrations of the big five: Chandra, Jace, Gideon, Nissa and Liliana. There are short chapters for Ajani, Teferi, Kaya, and Bolas but they are significantly shorter, to the point where I kind of wondered why WotC bothered including them.

On the front of basic story overview, Rise of the Gatewatch is a failure. I've read all the characters' official origin stories (they were some of the easiest stories to find) and some of the information given in the character bios here is flat out wrong. For example, this book says that Jace sought out Alhammarret for training, but according to Absent Minds (the origin story posted to WotC's own website in the Magic Story archive) Alhammarret was the one who sought out Jace. The other bios are littered with minor, but confusing mistakes, similar to this one which shouldn't have happened because this book was published after those stories were published. Did not one from WotC bother to check the book and make edits where needed?

Overall, I give Rise of the Gatewatch three stars, as the artwork for the characters I was really interested in does not even out the faults of the basic story overviews, which is what I was really interested in. The persistent mistakes also make me a bit wary of purchasing other books of this kind from WotC.

[Nicolai Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been following the Gatewatch members for years through Magic story, and I really enjoyed some of the artistry on full display in this book. I'm not sure what I initially expected, but I have mixed feelings about this because I have most of the cards in here, so I have, you could say, physical access to the art already, and I didn't get that sense of novelty or discovery. Flipping through the pages was simply like looking at my own card collection. There also wasn't much lore to be found in here either; only a few pages worth of text for each planeswalker. Other than that, I don't have much to say about it. It was okay and will oddly enough probably be better for someone new to the characters. Although not by a lot. They would be better off looking at some cards and reading character summaries online. So, I regrettably think I'm gonna sell my copy.

[Macky Santiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is inspiring. And a beautiful way to catch up on the Magic the Gathering Lore around the Gatewatch characters. Having been a fan of the books prior to the great mending (weatherlight... etc) it is nice to see new life breathed into the multiverse and a narrative that has taken a life of its own. And the creative process and journey behind the narrative is a massive bonus. Plus PRETTY ART. Stunning. So it’s an art book / character guide / narrative summary / documentary all in one!

[Biondy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a mixed feeling about this book. It's nice, but nothing really interesting added that I couldn't find in, let's say, MTG Gamepedia. The characters' background, association with other characters, as well as cards they appeared in, all can be found on the wiki page.

The big plus here is that I got this e-book for really cheap (about 90% discount). So, it's kinda worth it for its price, hence the 4 stars.

[Tom Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great artwork

So love the artwork, gorgeous in is presentation. They add the back stories to the planes walkers, in a very general way. By that I mean it’s nothing that can’t be found on the internet already. My only disappointment was how short this book was. It could have had either more information or, better, more images to show off.

[Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a magic fan and appreciates the artwork, then I suggest you get one. I have no complains over the art. But the background provided for each of the Planeswalkers were too brief. If there were more excerpts from the novels where they were first introduced, I would have given this book a higher rating. Another flaw was that it ended prior the encounter with Nicol Bolas in Amonkhet. That's it. It was abrupt.

[Jose Baltra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been playing the game for years and know the characters because of the cards. It was so inspiring and my imagination flied along with this book. To know the background of Liliana, Jace, Chandra, Ajani or Teferi is priceless, also, knowing a little bit more of Nicol Bolas was awesome. But I ended missing more deep knowledge, that's why 4 instead of 5. The art is amazing tho.

[Bahman Naraghi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've played MtG maybe 3-4 times in my life. Never got into it, but I do love the lore and the artwork and from that angle, great little book.

[Natalí · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice art

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't bad, but it was incredibly short and simple. I was hoping for something more along the lines of the D&D Art & Arcana book I read earlier this year.

[Ign33l · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to kill myself and i read this book. I learned that perosnalities are like colors

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked all the artwork - uninterrupted by card framework