General Limiting on-board PWs by limiting PW types

[Jason Waddell]

I was wondering if this idea had any merit. I always hate it when there are multiple PWs on one side of the table, and one way to marginally cut down on this would be to make sure PWs of a given color share the same type.

So, instead of Jace and Tamiyo, we run:


Black I'm running two Lilianas, two Gideons in white, 2 Chandras in red, 2 Garruks in green.
Is this idea super dumb?

 

[Goldenpineapple]

It's not super dumb but the real bad guys are the gold walkers. Sure you can only have one jace, but that won't stop you from having ral and tezzeret, for example.

It also creates this weird feelbad of getting lucky enough to get multiple on-color planeswalkers but you get 'punished' for drawing them in the same time frame.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yeah, I agree with Goldenpineapple (though Sorin has two versions and Sarkhan is all over the place (, , and !)). Especially the feel-bad aspect of having two Jaces for example. In fact, I've gone out of my way to prevent overlap in my planeswalker's types.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Yeah, I agree with Goldenpineapple (though Sorin has two versions and Sarkhan is all over the place (, , and !)). Especially the feel-bad aspect of having two Jaces for example. In fact, I've gone out of my way to prevent overlap in my planeswalker's types.

Is that really that "feel bad"? I remember playing Standard with baby Jace and big Jace and it presented interesting sequencing decisions. I think the "feel bad" of having a PW in hand is much less than the "feel bad" of facing two PWs on the other side of the board.

 

[Aston]

If the reason you can't play your planeswalker is because you have another one already in play and activating every turn, I don't think you can feel that bad.

 

[Jason Waddell]

If the reason you can't play your planeswalker is because you have another one already in play and activating every turn, I don't think you can feel that bad.

You even have the option to sac the old one and get 2 different PW activations in one turn.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

If you don't want players to end up with two planeswalkers in play every game you're better off limiting the amount of planeswalkers in your cube imho. In fact, I'm not even sure it's a problem if it doesn't happen too often. I have faced two opposing planeswalkers on multiple occasions, and it always made for interesting decisions in what planeswalker to attack. Of course the strength of those planeswalkers also matter. If my opponent is playing a Karn Liberated after he just landed a Gideon Jura I'm going to be pretty salty. That time I had to choose between attacking Ral Zarek and Garruk Wildspeaker (yes that happened) was interesting though, because attacking Garruk meant I would lose an important creature to Ral Zarek, but attacking Ral to preserve my board meant I wouldn't be able to kill Garruk next turn if he ticked it up, potentially giving my opponent time to build some defenses and fire off a game-ending Overrun.

 

[blacksmithy]

I did something similar before I cut my Cube's power level. Two Elspeths, two (and then three) Jaces, two Lilianas. For Red and Green I didn't care so much though, because those colors of decks just rarely went for the Superfriends route for some reason.
Of course, now my PW count is somewhat lower, but mostly because I cut all my Elspeths (I still luv u Ellie bae!). I'm actually finding Jace AOT to be subpar in the new meta, but the flip walkers I run (Kytheon, Jace, Lily) are awesome and play much better than regular walkers, IMO.
Anyway I'm on board with using this kind of balancing mechanism to discourage Superfriends decks. They're up there with Sol Ring or Squad Hawk decks for me in terms of not-fun-to-face-ness.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I did something similar before I cut my Cube's power level. Two Elspeths, two (and then three) Jaces, two Lilianas. For Red and Green I didn't care so much though, because those colors of decks just rarely went for the Superfriends route for some reason.
Of course, now my PW count is somewhat lower, but mostly because I cut all my Elspeths (I still luv u Ellie bae!). I'm actually finding Jace AOT to be subpar in the new meta, but the flip walkers I run (Kytheon, Jace, Lily) are awesome and play much better than regular walkers, IMO.
Anyway I'm on board with using this kind of balancing mechanism to discourage Superfriends decks. They're up there with Sol Ring or Squad Hawk decks for me in terms of not-fun-to-face-ness.

How are we doing on PW density these days? I'm at 13 / 360 (about 1.5 per drafter) plus 3 flipwalkers.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm down to 7/450, four of which are multicolor. If there's a superfriends list in my (three-color focused) cube it's in Grixis, which can play five of those seven.

 

[blacksmithy]

In my 400 list (450 if you count the duals in the ULD), I've got:
1 (flip Gideon)
2 (Jace B, flip Jace)
2 (LotV, flip Lily)
3 (Koth, Pyromaster, Sarkhan)
2 (OGarruk, Nissa WW)
Gold: 6 (Venser, Sarkhan, Sorin, Ajani, Ral, Kiora)
For a total of 16/400. No problems to report so far, except that we cut original Gideon and Jace AOT after our last session cuz Jura was too good and AOT was not good enough.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Whiiiich Gold Sarkhan / Sorin / Ajani / Kiora?

 

[safra]

12/360 plus two flip walkers. Wouldn't mind going down to ten or so but this is fine. Quasi-Superfriends shows up sometimes, but it's rare to see more than one walker in a pack, and so it ends up with, like, four walkers total. That's one or two a game in the dedicated deck, which feels beatable. Superfriends usually shows up here in Esper or Bant colours. (BRx is also popular)

 

[blacksmithy]

Sarkhan for the anthem effect and steal/sac shenanigans. Used to be Xenagos, but he was boring.
Sorin Lord of Innistrad for no particular reason other than I have the DD foil.
Ajani cuz my Boros-lovin' drafter likes him.
Theros Kiora for the cool wave in the background. Also a drafter fave.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Are we naming the pw's? Okay then, the 7 I run are

 

[Diakonov]

I'm currently running 12, so about 3%:



The more generic ones I've tried to keep at a very fair power level.

Edit: I may swap out Venser for Narset Transcendant to see how she fares.

 

[vennythekid]

Is that really that "feel bad"? I remember playing Standard with baby Jace and big Jace and it presented interesting sequencing decisions.

The sequencing descision you're talking about doesn't exist in the game anymore. It used to be (pre-M14) that if you had a Legendary creature that had the same name as one your opponent controled, you chose one of them and destroyed the other. The same thing applied to planeswalker types.

One common way for control decks (Caw Blade, etc) to answer Jace, the Mind Sculptor was by running sideboard Jace Beleren as a 3-mana "destroy target JTMS" with huge upside. This play no longer exists mechanically, so the sequencing descision isn't there.

 

[Jason Waddell]

The sequencing descision you're talking about doesn't exist in the game anymore. It used to be (pre-M14) that if you had a Legendary creature that had the same name as one your opponent controled, you chose one of them and destroyed the other. The same thing applied to planeswalker types.

One common way for control decks (Caw Blade, etc) to answer Jace, the Mind Sculptor was by running sideboard Jace Beleren as a 3-mana "destroy target JTMS" with huge upside. This play no longer exists mechanically, so the sequencing descision isn't there.

I know, but if you have Jace Beleren and JTMS in hand, you have to choose how to sequence. You interact with your own side of the board still, even if not with your opponent's.

 

[James Stevenson]

Guys you don't have to list the planeswalkers you run every time there's a thread about planeswalkers.

Spoiler

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Guys you don't have to list the planeswalkers you run every time there's a thread about planeswalkers.

Spoiler

I thought that was mandatory? Nice list by the way!

 

[whydirt]

I know, but if you have Jace Beleren and JTMS in hand, you have to choose how to sequence. You interact with your own side of the board still, even if not with your opponent's.

Not that this never happens, but it's definitely a low probability corner case unless you're drafting your entire 360 cube with a full pod every time. If your goal is to limit on-board PWs in your games, you should probably just cut down the total number of them in your cube.

 

[CML]

I was wondering if this idea had any merit. I always hate it when there are multiple PWs on one side of the table, and one way to marginally cut down on this would be to make sure PWs of a given color share the same type.

So, instead of Jace and Tamiyo, we run:


Black I'm running two Lilianas, two Gideons in white, 2 Chandras in red, 2 Garruks in green.
Is this idea super dumb?

i think it's ok as long as there's no gideon jura

my solution to this is just to run pw's that are vulnerable to being attacked honestly. so JTMS is fine but good elspeth and biggest elspeth are no good. ashiok is dicey.

anyone have experiences with JVP or thoughts about his power level? because every time i play with it it seems REALLY good

 

[safra]

JVP is absurd but i don't know if he fills the same role as JTMS (or Snapcaster) so people are still pretty bad at evaluating him. I remember at one point I didn't really care about facing him in Legacy but the reanimator and shardless lists with him have given me new pause. He's a busted return on mana, IMO, and even when he isn't Merfolk Looter is a good card. His floor is fine but I feel like especially when it comes to a tuned archetype he isn't reaching his potential.

I'll first-pick him pretty much everywhere and he's seeing play in every competitive format so you tell me

 

[shamizy]

JVP is really strong, he generates insane value once he flips. Not anywhere near as good on a board with a bunch of dudes, but he can hold the fort really well if he's up against a single threat. He doesn't flip every game though, so I'm fine with him so far. I haven't seen anything really busted happen yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

 

[CML]

the more i think about it the more the original premise of this thread seems ridonculous