Should We See Oldwalkers on Cards?

 It's an irony, I think, that Urza is only explicitly depicted as the true subject of two cards. One, Blind Seer, is a legendary creature that depicts him in a false persona, there to guide the Weatherlight crew on their world-saving quest. The other, Urza, Academy Headmaster (notice the cheeky pun, as this depicts him post-Phyrexian Arena/everything from the neck down) is from an Un- set, and thus is not to be taken too seriously (in fact, it's funny to consider that the entirety of Hearthstone is to World of Warcraft (and the Warcraft series in general) what the Un-sets are to Magic: the Gathering).

Planeswalkers were introduced in the Lorwyn block, which came out the year after Time Spiral. It was the events of the Time Spiral block that changed how planeswalkers worked in Magic lore. No longer god-like beings who could construct their own planes and build their own, lesser gods (like Avacyn,) Planeswalkers basically just became very powerful mortals with some serious magic who were now exclusively the only ones who could travel between planes (give or take a special invention made on Kaladesh).

Core Set 2021 went back and revisited the Mirage storyline, which first introduced Teferi as the powerful planeswalker wizard who sort of inadvertently set off the whole conflict there. Teferi would be fleshed out in Urza's Saga and has sort of emerged as one of the two real heirs to Urza's legacy (the other being Karn).

The story has significantly moved away from the Dominaria-focused origins and, indeed, Urza has been sort of shifted out of the spotlight as the game's most important figure. The planeswalkers introduced in the Lorwyn block have, to a large extent, been the game's primary characters (though with Gideon's death, he's clearly out, and Garruk has sort of taken a back seat in favor of Nissa as the main Green planeswalker.)

What I wonder, though, is whether Teferi as depicted in his Core Set 2021 cards, is depicting him as the pre-mending Oldwalker he once was.

There are, certainly, planeswalkers whose spark ignited pre-Mending who have been depicted on cards. Sorin, Nahiri, and Ugin all appear to be on timescales comparable to Urza (Ugin is significantly older, as his his brother Nicol Bolas.) And even Liliana Vess is, I believe, supposed to have ignited pre-Mending, though I think she only had a brief period of unfettered planeswalking before everything changed.

But these cards all depict these planeswalkers in a post-Mending multiverse.

The power-level of an Oldwalker is part of the reason the Mending was worked into the story - to bring planeswalkers down to the level that a single card could represent them.

Given that a player is supposed to be a planeswalker, you could almost imagine that an Oldwalker could only be represented by another player with a killer deck shows up and teams up with you against your opponent (though on the other hand, if we player planeswalkers have also been de-powered, that don't really follow.)

As these Core Sets visit the past, telling stories like the Mirage War, I do now wonder if we could see some modern-designed cards that depict Urza and other powerful entities.

AND HERE'S WHERE I FEEL DUMB!

I just looked up Serra the Benevolent. Serra died well before the Mending, which means that she couldn't have ever been anything but the old god-like version of a Planeswalker.

So does that open up the possibility for Urza? I don't know.

Urza might not be as sacred as he once was, but I suspect that WotC is hesitant to embody him in a card.