How do you get The Brothers' War prerelease promo cards?

Prerelease promos were distributed at participating stores during the prerelease event, which ran November 11–17, 2022. Each participant received a stamped foil rare or mythic rare from The Brothers' War — any rare or mythic from the main set was eligible.

What is the Buy-a-Box promo for The Brothers' War?

The Buy-a-Box promo for The Brothers' War is an alternate art Mishra's Foundry, available while supplies lasted when purchasing a booster box from a participating store.

What are the Game Day promos for The Brothers' War?

Game Day (December 3–11, 2022) had three tiers: a full alternate art Recruitment Officer for participation, Braids, Arisen Nightmare for Top 8 finishes, and Surge Engine for the event winner.

What are the 30th Anniversary promos included in The Brothers' War Promos?

The 30th Anniversary promos released alongside The Brothers' War are Wall of Roots, Wood Elves, Windfall, and a Chinese (simplified) version of Loyal Retainers. These are reprints of older cards given a commemorative treatment, not new Brothers' War cards.

What is the Phyrexian Language promo from The Brothers' War?

The Phyrexian Language promo from The Brothers' War Promos is Psychosis Crawler, distributed at the WPN Premium-Exclusive Commander Party held December 16–18, 2022.

The Brothers' War Promos (PBRO): Complete Guide

Q: What is the PBRO set code?

PBRO is the set code for The Brothers' War Promos — the collection of promotional cards distributed through events, retail bonuses, and special programmes tied to The Brothers' War (BRO) released in November 2022.

Promo sets are where Magic's promotional ecosystem comes into sharp focus - the same cards you'd open in a booster, dressed up in alternate art, special frames, or unique finishes as rewards for showing up, competing, or supporting your local game store. The Brothers' War Promos (PBRO) collects 169 promotional cards tied to The Brothers' War (BRO), the November 2022 set that revisited one of Dominaria's most consequential historical conflicts.

If you're hunting a specific promo variant from this set - or just trying to understand what was available and where - this guide breaks it all down.

What is The Brothers' War Promos?

PBRO is the promotional card set accompanying The Brothers' War (BRO), released in November 2022. It isn't a product you buy in a box - it's the umbrella catalogue for all the alternate-art, stamped, and special-treatment cards distributed through events, retail bonuses, and store programmes tied to the main set.

The set contains 169 cards in total. These span a range of card numbers beyond the main set's 287 cards, picking up where the extended-art and Buy-a-Box slots left off.

Format check: All PBRO cards are legal in exactly the same formats as their main-set counterparts. The promo treatment doesn't change a card's legality.

Themes and mechanical identity

Because PBRO is a promotional companion set rather than a standalone release, it doesn't introduce mechanics of its own. The cards within it reflect the full mechanical identity of The Brothers' War - an "event set" built around the legendary conflict between the brothers Urza and Mishra on Dominaria.

The main set's themes - artifacts, giant mechanical creatures (Mechs), Powerstone tokens, Unearth, and Prototype - all show up across the promo cards, since any rare or mythic rare from BRO could appear as a prerelease stamp.

Lore aside: The Brothers' War is one of Magic's oldest and most significant storylines, originally explored in the Antiquities expansion (1994) and the 1998 novel The Brothers' War by Jeff Grubb. The 2022 set - and its promos - revisit that pivotal moment through the eyes of both historical figures like Urza, Mishra, Tawnos, and Ashnod, and modern Planeswalkers travelling back through time.

The promo cards, broken down by source

This is where PBRO gets interesting. Rather than one unified product, the 169 cards come from several distinct promotional channels, each with its own distribution method and card selection.

Prerelease promos

The prerelease ran November 11-17, 2022. Players who participated received a stamped rare or mythic rare from The Brothers' War - any rare or mythic rare in the set was eligible. These stamp-foil prerelease cards are some of the most accessible promos in the set, since nearly every local game store running a prerelease event would have distributed them.

Universal promo pack

For other in-store events - FNM, Commander Nights, and similar - stores received The Brothers' War universal promo pack. The cards from these packs carry a dark frame treatment and are numbered #380-384 in the main BRO numbering system, which places them within the PBRO catalogue. In my experience, these event promos are often the ones that fly under the radar for collectors, but they're worth paying attention to for the alternate frame treatment alone.

Buy-a-Box

The Buy-a-Box promo for The Brothers' War was an alternate art Mishra's Foundry (#378 in BRO numbering). Purchasing a booster box from a participating store earned you this card while supplies lasted - a fitting choice given how central Mishra's industrial ambitions are to the set's story.

Bundle promo

The Brothers' War Bundle included a foil alternate art Queen Kayla bin-Kroog (#379). Kayla is one of the war's key figures - Urza's wife and a chronicler of the conflict - so seeing her get a premium bundle treatment makes a lot of thematic sense. This is one of the promos I'd call genuinely beautiful; the alternate art versions of legendary characters from this era of Dominaria's history tend to be striking.

Game Day promos

Game Day ran December 3-11, 2022, and came with a tiered promo structure:

Participation: Full alternate art Recruitment Officer
Top 8: Braids, Arisen Nightmare
Winner: Surge Engine

This three-tier system - participation, top cut, and winner - is a classic Game Day approach. The winner promo especially tends to be among the harder cards to acquire from any given set's promo lineup.

30th Anniversary promos

To mark Magic's 30th anniversary in 2022, a selection of special promos was released alongside The Brothers' War:

Wall of Roots
Wood Elves
Windfall
Loyal Retainers (Chinese simplified edition)

These aren't BRO cards mechanically - they're reprints of older cards given commemorative treatment - but they fall within the PBRO catalogue. Windfall in particular is a card with a long and storied competitive history, and getting a 30th Anniversary promo version is a nice collectors' piece.

Commander Party promo

The WPN Premium-Exclusive Commander Party (held December 16-18, 2022) distributed a Phyrexian Language Psychosis Crawler. Phyrexian-language cards have been a popular premium treatment since they were introduced, and Psychosis Crawler - a card with strong flavour connections to both artifacts and the Phyrexian corruption creeping through this story arc - is a fitting choice.

Korean exclusive token

In a genuinely unique regional collaboration, Wizards of the Coast partnered with Korean cartoonist Seung hoon Na to release a special double-sided token for Korean Magic players. The token features Constructs without predefined Power/Toughness - a creative, regionally specific collectible that sits in a fascinating corner of The Brothers' War Promos catalogue.

Events timeline

| Event | Dates | |---|---| | Prerelease | November 11-17, 2022 | | Arena & MTGO release | November 15, 2022 | | Launch Party | November 18-20, 2022 | | FNM season | November 18, 2022 - January 20, 2023 | | Commander Nights | November 21, 2022 - January 26, 2023 | | Game Day | December 3-11, 2022 | | Commander Party (WPN Premium) | December 16-18, 2022 |

Lore and setting

The Brothers' War Promos are rooted in one of Dominaria's darkest chapters. The war between Urza and Mishra - brothers who began their lives as archaeologists and ended them as warlords commanding armies of artifact creatures - shaped the entire future of the plane. The conflict is told in three acts across the main set: childhood and discovery, decades of escalating war, and a final cataclysm that changed Dominaria forever.

The 2022 storyline threads modern Planeswalkers - including Teferi, Kaya, Saheeli, and others - into this historical moment, using time travel to make the ancient war feel immediate and consequential. This is also the second chapter in the four-set Phyrexian story arc, which means the shadow of New Phyrexia looms over even the distant past.

Many of the promo cards - particularly Kayla bin-Kroog, Braids, Mishra's Foundry, and Psychosis Crawler - are tied directly to characters and locations central to this story. That connection between promo selection and narrative is, I think, one of the more thoughtful aspects of how this set's promotional lineup was curated.

Set legacy

The Brothers' War Promos sit within one of the most lore-rich sets Magic has released in recent years. For collectors, PBRO offers an unusually wide range of entry points - from the relatively accessible prerelease stamp to the regionally exclusive Korean token and the tiered Game Day winner promo. The 30th Anniversary promos add a commemorative dimension that goes beyond the set itself, tying the BRO release to Magic's broader history.

If you're building a collection around this era of Dominarian history, or simply want the most visually distinctive versions of key cards from The Brothers' War, PBRO is worth understanding in full - there are more distinct promo sources here than many sets produce. ✨