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Switch to Forum Live View 7/14/2010 StF: "Planeswalkers' Signature Spells"
3 years ago  ::  Jul 14, 2010 - 9:27AM #11
Cheza
Date Joined: Feb 10, 2006
Posts: 582
I don't like the fact, that only one spell interacts with the planeswalker. And most of them do it in a very underpowered way. The other card each planeswalker has often doesn't really fit into a deck build around the planeswalker and could be better.

Last but not least. Maybe you should create an edh-like format, where a planeswalker is your 'general'.

Ajani


The analysis:
The mantra is just too weak and the Pridemage just to selfish. If you can get a 2/1 for casting cost 1, why shouldn't it be possible to get a card that gives you 1 life per turn for cmc 1. Therefore a Sun Droplet is a much more flavorful card for Ajani, as well as a Cradle of Vitality or Well of Lost Dreams .

The deck:
In an deck built around Ajani...
a) you should get a huge bonus for gaining life
b) you should have a lot of creatures
c) you need some sort of lifegain
d) you need some sort of evasion & protection for the final kill

A Kinsbaile Borderguard was quite fine, but he didn't read 'when he leaves the battlefield'. And I am not a fan of white having tokens. Tokens are not very individual. I tried to combine Ajani with my Rebel deck, but he doesn't really fit in there... and doesn't solve the problem of a rebel deck.

Therefore the Ranger of Eos is one of the best white cards, but he has the same converted mana cost as Ajani. So this is a minor drawback. The Squadron Hawk s aren't cats, but get close to what you  want. The effect is limited to a maximum of 4 copies (like a 'pride')and to a specific card. It's not like a Goblin Matron , where you get only one card, but you're not limited to a specific card. If you search for another Matron, you could get similar results to the Hawks... getting all your copies into play.

Therefore, I would have made the Pridemate like the Squadron Hawk without flying but higher P/T rating (maybe a 3/1 for ). The mantra (a calming presence???) should have been something like "whenever you gain life, pay ???. If you do, target permanent doesn't untap during the next untap step" or something that uses life-gain to produce damage prevention or color protection. And it should have been an enchantment for cmc3 to keep the mana curve right, allowing early creatures.

Jace


The analysis:
First of all, I don't like the fact that blue uses mill-effects. I know that this is a historical tradition, where you only need to  have a deck full of counterspells and an alternative win condition ( Millstone ). But the win-con wasn't and isn't such important.

Milling however, is a nearly useless ability, unless you mill the whole library or use the cards in the graveyard. In other words, it's risky, you can't rely on it, supports graveyard use and is highly random.... so it's an easy call: It's a red!!!

Especially mass-milling. Extract on the other side grants a card disadvantage for a specific task: denying the important cards. It's a search effect instead of a random "top X cards", so it's much more relyable and much more blue.

Card draw effects are also random, luck-based effects, but grant a useful, but slow way to win in long terms. So this is neither blue (luck-based), nor red, but white. Letting all players draw cards is even more white. Searching cards or reorder cards are a much better way for blue.

Let's imagine a world of magic, where blue doesn't have the old counter+instant draw option and has no useless mill effects. Instead, blue uses it's intellect to put the right cards on top of his/her own library... and puts the wrong cards on of an opponent's library on top of it (or the right cards out/on the bottom of that library).

Then, blue would harmonize with white using draw spells, but would fear the red mill effect that would ruin the exact order of the cards... what a perfect situation. Opposing colors hate each other and befriended colors support each other.

So I can't like the new blue Jace cards, no matter how good they are. And I don't want to think about a blue deck, where the player was focussed so much on mass-milling, that he survived with just one life, but completely milled an opponent's deck. This isn't a blue way to win... it never was. But it is supported so much by R&D, that it makes me a sad panda.

Liliana


The analysis:
As already mentioned, searching the library and putting the card on top of it, is a blue ability in my opinion. Adding a 'life-loss' doesn't change the fact. In addition, a black mage tries to domiate others and hate anything that doesn't grant an instantaneous power bonus. It's more a 'get the bonus now and pay the price later' than vice-versa.

Therefore, the second ability would have been an ability for Jace, where the 'pay 2 life' is replaced with 'pay 2 points of loyality'. It would have been much more a black ability, if you would really draw the card.

Liliana's specter feels like a multiplayer card, But if you want to die, try that one and feel the consequence, when you've become a public enemy. The low toughness doesn't feel right either.

The Megrim -power-up card Liliana's Caress doesn't feel right either. First of all, if you play a black discard control type of deck, you need the early turns. You don't want to waste a turn 2 slot for an enchantment. It's better than wasting a turn 3 Megrim slot, but still doesn't feel right. I believe that R&D has forbidden the cmc2 discard slot. Players would rather play 2 cmc1 discard cards and a Hymn to Tourach won't have a comeback in the next few years. And of course: The turn2 slot has enough creature destruction cards.

The deck:
The early slots are full with discard control. The mid-game slots (like the specter) establishes a permanent discard control and should handle the board, if some creatures have slipped through during the early turns. The finishing cards shouldn't really focus on discard, but rather on reanimating the creatures your opponent has discarded and you'll have a nice black deck.

Liliana should have a casting cost of 4. Any additional mana cost means that you either have a dead card, you have to put additional lands into your deck or you have to focus on mana acceleration. But Lilliana is as she is. A quite useless, too expensive women that could be used in MBC decks rather than discard decks.

I would have made a Specter that combines power with a  discard effect.  Something like a 1/1 with 'Whenever  Liliana's specter deals combat damage to a  player, that player  discards a card' and 'Whenever  an opponent discards a card, put a  +1/+1 counter on Liliana's Specter'.  A Mind Rot would be a  additional  +2/+2 effect. The more despair you create, the more powerful he becomes.

Liliana's caress should be something with cmc2-3, that helps even more to establish board control. Maybe it could also increase your amount of mana... like the Cadaverous Bloom did. This would make it possible to play Liliana a few turns earlier. Something like a Phyrexian Totem . However the Negator Totem isn't able to establish board control. Therefore anything that prevents your opponent from attacking or playing spells would be a much better choice.

_____________________

Chandra and Garruk will be in an other reply.
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3 years ago  ::  Jul 14, 2010 - 3:22PM #12
ThadeGelna
Date Joined: May 14, 2008
Posts: 7
@ willpell - Comment # 6

Chandra's Googles:
I wish this card was real. The ("R": Target player shuffles their library.) is begging for Johnny abuse!

As for our boy Doug's article, great as always. The flavor created from this large cycle should entice the newer player to learn more about these Planeswalkers and their stories. Which means more sales for WOTC in card, video game and book form. As my friends like to call them, Wizards of the Product... I have no complaints!
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3 years ago  ::  Jul 14, 2010 - 4:38PM #13
willpell
Date Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 4,840

Jul 14, 2010 -- 3:22PM, ThadeGelna wrote:

@ willpell - Comment # 6

Chandra's Googles:
I wish this card was real. The ("R": Target player shuffles their library.) is begging for Johnny abuse!

As for our boy Doug's article, great as always. The flavor created from this large cycle should entice the newer player to learn more about these Planeswalkers and their stories. Which means more sales for WOTC in card, video game and book form. As my friends like to call them, Wizards of the Product... I have no complaints!




Now that I think it's probably too good with Psychogenic Probe, not to mention that it could be used simply to stall and annoy your opponent into conceding or going to time; they'd never print it.  Maybe have it tap, that way it'd only be slightly annoying.  But yeah, Johnny abuse was kinda the point.  Besides, I like the flavor of these "ether goggles" filled with chaos mana...you stare at someone through them, and THEY see trippy visions which randomize their prepared spells.

My New Phyrexia Writing Credits
My M12 Writing Credits

As far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing.
--Aaron Forsythe's Random Card Comment on Kei Takahashi

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3 years ago  ::  Jul 14, 2010 - 5:08PM #14
SaintMahone
Date Joined: Jul 14, 2010
Posts: 4
I wouldn't be too critical, they don't have to do things like this, and I thought it grand indeed that they did. I'd caught the relationship between the two cards, but not the tie back to the respective 'walker.

*** It's possible to overdo this, though. Did the art of ..."OpenTip(event, "Broken Fall")" class="nodec">Broken Fall really need to be concepted around Gerrard's plunge from the deck of the Weatherlight, the attempted aid of Selenia, and the broken branches of Skyshroud Forest? ***

Maybe I'm one of the few, but I hold Tempest block's storyboard card design to be the pinnacle of flavour. I loved the way it unfolded, and even now would say that while perhaps Tarngarth's Glare was poor, overall having so many cards steeped in the story really added to my enjoyment. All-time favourite block.
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3 years ago  ::  Jul 15, 2010 - 8:43AM #15
willpell
Date Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 4,840
Tempest may have overdone it just a weence, but overall the storyboard idea wasn't a bad one.  Broken Fall is a spectacularly bad example for Beyer to pick, because what could the card possibly represent other than Gerrard's impression of a Chaos Orb being aimed at someone's Platinum Angel?  The card has no particular reason to exist *other* than to show off that moment, and yet they made a functional reprint of the same card years later ( Molting Skin in Kamigawa IIRC).  That shows that an idea almost certainly inspired by the storyline proved to have functional merit.

I think the balance of story and setting was just about perfect in Kamigawa block.  There was a sense of progress even within individual sets, yet it was still mostly a wide-angle view.  Ravnica, TSP, Lorwymoor and Alara all did reasonably good as well; only in Zendikar have they gone badly astray, creating a setting which seems to actively sabotage itself.
My New Phyrexia Writing Credits
My M12 Writing Credits

As far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing.
--Aaron Forsythe's Random Card Comment on Kei Takahashi

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3 years ago  ::  Jul 21, 2010 - 7:30AM #16
Jakusotsu
Date Joined: Aug 14, 2003
Posts: 380
I'm still not happy with a 1/3 flyer for 3 in Red. It might spit fire now and then, but as it sits there it's just a beefed up Goblin Sky Raider . Not very Chandra at all.
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