The invasion began when Rath was overlaid onto Dominaria. Strongholds, armies and stolen terrain appeared across the plane, bypassing the slow limitations that normally separated worlds. Places already shaped by Rath’s construction became immediate fronts in a war that reached multiple continents at once.
Dominaria answered with the Coalition, an alliance spanning peoples and nations that had often treated one another as rivals. The Weatherlight became both weapon and connective tissue, moving between battles while commanders tried to create strategy from local crises. Cooperation was not sentimental unity; it was the difficult practice of sharing survival.
Teferi refused Urza’s demand that Zhalfir and Shiv be spent inside his plan. He phased both lands out of time, protecting their inhabitants from invasion but creating a separation he could not later reverse. The choice saved lives immediately and became a wound that lasted beyond the war.