General Low Power Planeswalkers

japahn

japahn

I want to run planeswalkers in the Macroarchetype Cube (https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/whosthebeatdown)

Got some good suggestions, and over the last week I went through all 277 planeswalkers and actually read them. I picked the ones with the criterias:

- Not being wincons by themselves unless they were 6+ mana, which removed a swath of token pumpers.
- Talking about tokens, I don't want big games, I want small games, so even if the planeswalker is not too powerful, I'd rather it not pump out 3+ tokens.
- Favor designs that aren't the default "generates value until ultimate, unless you need to downtick it".
- Flavorful / resonant. If the abilities make sense, all the better.
- Aligned with aggro or control, not just midrange like most planeswalkers are.

What I ended up was... well, mostly low power cards. Turns out that most planeswalkers are designed as wincons.



I know there's a reasonably large power band there, but just to fact check myself - the high end is Tamiyo, W7 and Lily of the Veil, right?

Am I overvaluing how strong planeswalkers are and putting a bunch of unplayable cards in the cube?

Am I undervaluing how strong planeswalkers are (especially with a lot of wraths) and putting 10+ P1P1s in the cube?
 
Zoss

Zoss

Vraska is pretty powerful, IIRC. Maybe more powerful than Tamiyo? I haven't played with Tamiyo, though, so I can't say for sure. I also think that you're missing out by not including Chandra, Acolyte of Flame because her tokens don't stick around, similar to Chandra, Flamecaller, which you do seem to like. Gideon Blackblade and Gideon of the Trials are also fairly "decisive" (i.e. not-midrange) planeswalkers, even if they're both pretty linear and pretty strong. Aggro PWs are hard to find, and they're really the only ones that support it apart from The Royal Scions, Lili of the Veil, and maaaaybe Tibalt?
 
landofMordor

landofMordor

Administrator
I think the strongest of these are Liliana of the Veil, Vraska Queen, Royal Scions, and Kaito. Saheeli, Tamiyo, and W7 are fine, but I'm rarely P1P1ing them over any of the former 'walkers.

I think Gideon Champion, Ajani Unyielding, Karn 7, Kiora, and Sorin ZEN are roughly unplayable (or you'd need very specific deck to make them good). Karn 4, Vraska WAR, Lili Dark Realms, and Davriel will require synergy to be as strong as a Watchwolf.

+1s on the suggestions of the 3-mana Gideons. I also think you'd like Kaya, Ghost Assassin and Dakkon, Shadow Slayer.

Unsolicited food for thought below; feel free to ignore.

You say "no wincons below 6 mana." I typically think of 99% of planeswalkers as wincons, because most planeswalkers are threats, and most Magic threats advance the game towards an ending. All of the planeswalkers you listed except Kiora and Davriel will win the game by themselves if nothing else is going on. That's a planeswalker's job -- to punish players who rely on destructive interaction instead of creature combat. They're just Thrun, the last Troll, but less heavy-handed.

You say "no midrange-aligned walkers", and "no uptick for value until you ultimate". These don't describe most of my interactions with planeswalkers. Most planeswalker games of Magic tend to go 1 of 3 ways:
- Villain is behind on board (or worse, has spent all their game actions on destructive interaction or combo setup), so the planeswalker wins well before it ultimates (see prior paragraph)
- the opponent gets ahead on board and attacks the planeswalker, destroying it after only 1-2 activations
- the board is roughly at parity and the planeswalker does not uptick for value til it ultimates, because it's better to break parity ASAP

The exception: once a control mage has stabilized in Constructed, they'll often close the game out in a timely fashion by upticking to ultimate (in my mind, this is good because it outraces alternative win-cons). But it's not the midrange-aligned planeswalkers that are in danger of this play pattern, because midrange is interested in using the 'walker's non-ultimates to navigate a dynamic board state.

Finally, you may be over-indexing the interaction between board wipes and planeswalkers. If I'm on the play against an aggro deck and wipe T4, they will redeploy threats on their T4. I can't safely play a planeswalker into that board state on T5. For this to be a safe move, aggro has to be truly out of gas, in which case Control is favored even if they play Serra Angel.
TL;DR: These tests look fine and you should test them even if you aren't sure they're correct for the format! I suspect you'll find relatively few games will end in a planeswalker ultimate (and when they do, both players will breathe a sigh of relief that their unnaturally long game is finally over!). Good luck :)
 
japahn

japahn

landofMordor said:
I think the strongest of these are Liliana of the Veil, Vraska Queen, Royal Scions, and Kaito. Saheeli, Tamiyo, and W7 are fine, but I'm rarely P1P1ing them over any of the former 'walkers.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, the only surprise to me is that The Royal Scions is good. Is it just the +2/+0 uptick? An attackable Jousting Lance seems like a good inclusion in aggro and a reason to play UR Aggro, which is what I want out of them, but is that so good?

landofMordor said:
I think Gideon Champion, Ajani Unyielding, Karn 7, Kiora, and Sorin ZEN are roughly unplayable (or you'd need very specific deck to make them good). Karn 4, Vraska WAR, Lili Dark Realms, and Davriel will require synergy to be as strong as a Watchwolf.
Click to expand...
You may be right, especially about Gideon, Champion of Justice. I think Ajani Unyielding, Sorin Markov and Karn Liberator will be stronger than you think because 6-7 mana is very attainable for control even up against aggro (wraths and Shore Ups are reasons for aggro to have a slow burn rather than explosive T1-T4s). I'm even concerned about Sorin Markov's power level, but we'll see.

landofMordor said:
+1s on the suggestions of the 3-mana Gideons. I also think you'd like Kaya, Ghost Assassin and Dakkon, Shadow Slayer.
Click to expand...
I may try one of those gids, thanks! Kaya seems a bit too strong, though there's definitely agency when you're playing with her. How good is she? Dakkon also seems a bit too good since you can play him at 6 lands with 3 mana up, vindicate twice. I have no idea what the flavor is supposed to be, too, the card makes no sense to me.

landofMordor said:
unsolicited food for thought below; feel free to ignore.

You say "no wincons below 6 mana." I typically think of 99% of planeswalkers as wincons, because most planeswalkers are threats, and most Magic threats advance the game towards an ending. All of the planeswalkers you listed except Kiora and Davriel will win the game by themselves if nothing else is going on. That's a planeswalker's job -- to punish players who rely on destructive interaction instead of creature combat. They're just Thrun, the last Troll, but less heavy-handed.
Click to expand...
What I mean by wincon is a card that wins the game quickly if left unchecked. So Savannah Lions is not a wincon because it takes too damn long to kill, and can easily be dealt with by having any blocker.

Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord for example is also not what I'd call wincon, because it takes too long to kill.

landofMordor said:
You say "no midrange-aligned walkers", and "no uptick for value until you ultimate". These don't describe most of my interactions with planeswalkers. Most planeswalker games of Magic tend to go 1 of 3 ways:
- Villain is behind on board (or worse, has spent all their game actions on destructive interaction or combo setup), so the planeswalker wins well before it ultimates (see prior paragraph)
- the opponent gets ahead on board and attacks the planeswalker, destroying it after only 1-2 activations
- the board is roughly at parity and the planeswalker does not uptick for value til it ultimates, because it's better to break parity ASAP

The exception: once a control mage has stabilized in Constructed, they'll often close the game out in a timely fashion by upticking to ultimate (in my mind, this is good because it outraces alternative win-cons). But it's not the midrange-aligned planeswalkers that are in danger of this play pattern, because midrange is interested in using the 'walker's non-ultimates to navigate a dynamic board state.
Click to expand...
I think this environment will end up playing differently that the majority of your experience, so the patterns will look a bit different. For example, in parity I expect the uptick to be the better option rather than the downtick. But I'll have to actually play and find this out.

landofMordor said:
Finally, you may be over-indexing the interaction between board wipes and planeswalkers. If I'm on the play against an aggro deck and wipe T4, they will redeploy threats on their T4. I can't safely play a planeswalker into that board state on T5. For this to be a safe move, aggro has to be truly out of gas, in which case Control is favored even if they play Serra Angel.
Click to expand...
The pattern with Wraths I'm watching out for is the other order - Planeswalker protecting itself, Wrath, win the game slowly with the Planeswalker under no pressure.

landofMordor said:
TL;DR: These tests look fine and you should test them even if you aren't sure they're correct for the format! I suspect you'll find relatively few games will end in a planeswalker ultimate (and when they do, both players will breathe a sigh of relief that their unnaturally long game is finally over!). Good luck :)
Click to expand...
Thanks!
 
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landofMordor

landofMordor

Administrator
japahn said:
I may try one of those gids, thanks! Kaya seems a bit too strong, though there's definitely agency when your playing with her. How good is she? Dakkon also seems a bit too good since you can play him at 6 lands with 3 mana up, vindicate twice. I have no idea what the flavor is supposed to be, too, the card makes no sense to me.
Click to expand...
Kaya's strong but not unfair. Really hard to predict play patterns for her, but in general I'm gonna be happy if I get to -2 her twice.

Dakkon Blackblade is an Esper lands-matter Legend from... Legends. He was the original(?) owner of the Blackblade, which is good at killin' stuff real good and doesn't go away (hence the latter two abilities). He's not too good for your format. He's a 3-color Murder (not Vindicate) floor, and in the scenario you describe he turns into a 3-mana 2-for-1 spread across 2 turns. He's easily worse than either Gideon, Liliana, or Kaito.

Royal scions are a 3-mana Jousting Lance that loots if attacking is bad, and they uptick to 6 loyalty on turn 3. Nobody's attacking for 6 on turn 3-4. I mean, to be clear, Scions are eminently fair (zero feelbads), but I think they're P1P1 material in this cube.

I am excited to hear about your testing of these cards, including Karn! I think it'll be cool if he's able to be a control finisher.
 
Zoss

Zoss

Dakkon, Shadow Slayer is pretty brutal in the late game IMHO. Exile makes it a lot better than just double murder. That said, it's a fine payoff for your control decks surviving and it's a card I'm happy to have as a p1p1.
 
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