Magic: The Gathering – 5 Red Planeswalkers and Their Stories

Within Magic: The Gathering each of the five different coloured manas offers a unique approach to gameplay. As a colour, red is associated with speed, chaos, freedom and intense emotion - especially anger. It is also associated with earth and fire elements.

Red is the most aggressive colour within the MTG colour pie, meaning that for many it’s considered the best colour when trying to win the game as quickly as possible.

There are 36 Planeswalkers cards linked to red mana, which are almost fully mono-red in colour.

Let’s look at some of the powerful red Planeswalkers you may want in your deck.

Chandra Nalaar

This Planeswalker is free-spirited, incredibly powerful and above all impulsive. She has not yet finished growing into the hero that destiny says she will become. She is naturally adept at conjuring and, when she is face-to-face with a challenge, she acts first and thinks later. Chandra believes that everyone has the right to the kind of freedom that is needed to help them make their own choices. When confronted by oppression, she is almost incapable of standing aside. Whilst her heart may be in the right place, her hot-headed nature all too often gets in the way, making problems more difficult than they need to be. These occasional missteps, however, are not nearly enough to deter her passion, her optimism, or even her smart-mouthed levity.

Koth - Red Planeswalker & Freedom Fighter

Koth of the Hammer is a freedom fighter, who is waging war against an extra-planar evil that has been instrumental in the ruthless conquering of his native plane. His cause may appear lost to many, however his determination in refusing to abandon his remaining people is steadfast. Against all the odds his fight continues. He’s a vulshok geomancer - a mage who can command and shape stone and metal through sheer will so he quite literally buries his foes under stone avalanches or incinerates them in rivers of molten lava. Koth has the power to raise mountains, collapse the ground beneath enemies, and encase them in molten rock or hardened stone. He can summon waves of earth that swallow up opponents, pin them down, or crush them under sheer weight. He animates mountains to fight as creatures and unleashes red mana like flowing magma.

He does all this to protect the survivors and punish the monsters responsible for destroying his home.

Tibalt

Tibalt is one of Magic: The Gathering’s most infamous villains - an interplanar menace with a sadistic side, he revels in the suffering of others. He brings conflict and misery with him wherever he goes and to all those he encounters. He was born a mortal on Innistrad, but his insatiable fascination with all types of pain drove him to explore fiendish magic. But his hunger for torment went too far and in a twisted experiment, Tibalt merged his own soul with fiendish devils. That moment of agony was so intense it ignited his planeswalker spark. It was this that ultimately transformed him into the half-devil he is now.

He delights in torment not just of the body, but of the spirit - tricking people into ruin, stirring up bloodshed, and laughing at their downfall. Unlike calculated villains, Tibalt is chaos incarnate, cruel for cruelty’s sake.

He’s clashed with heroes like Chandra and Koth, but his most notorious moment came on Kaldheim, where he disguised himself as the trickster god Loki-like “Valki” to manipulate the realms into war. Though defeated, he left devastation behind. Wherever he appears, you can be sure that someone, somewhere, will suffer.

Rowan Kenrith

In the Multiverse, Rowan Kenrith and Will, her twin brother, are unique. They are the only Planeswalkers known to share a Spark. Where one of them goes, the other one must follow. Rowan trained as a knight and uses electrical magic to charge her blade with arcane energy which she is able to use to stun, trap, or even shock her opponents.

Rowan has the drive and ambition to eclipse the achievements of her royal father, King Kenrith of the realm of Ardenvale, and to attain her own greatness. Being hot-headed, she acts on impulse but is also courageous and quick to defend others, often with explosive force.

Her struggles with anger and a thirst for independence are possibly setting her up for future conflicts. Yet she is forever intertwined with her brother Will’s icy restraint.

Daretti - A Clever & Resourceful Planeswalker

Born on Fiora, Daretti was a brilliant artificer trapped in a broken body. Crippled from birth, mocked and underestimated, he found freedom in machines. He built contraptions to move, to fight, and to create.

He can always create something brilliant out of what others see as junk.

Clever and resourceful, Daretti is always underestimated by those who judge him by his appearance. But he knows he can build wonders or weapons out of almost anything.

Daretti returned to Fiora after a long time away, to attempt to reshape the power structures in the ruthless High City of Paliano. He clawed his way into the game of politics not with scheming and deception, but with his ingenuity and the power that his machines gave him.

All Images Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast