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I was wondering why the text frame was all black, then I relized it's a planeshifted version of a hybrid text frame.  Hybrid text frames are normally light gray.  This one is dark gray.

Nifty, I hadn't considered a flipping Planeswalker (not that I gave it much thought).  The front face has enough action to be interesting, although with two decently good versions of Garruk won't there be some of the "Legendary" part of the Planeswalkers coming into play?  I play Garruk, flip him, you play Garruk, they both go away?  Anyway, I expect this guy will nearly always come into play and nail something small to get flipped, even if I do have dreams of pumping out 2/2s all day long.

I think spewing out a steady stream of 2/2s is decent, but not great.  What bothers me most is how the back face is "black", but in looking at the individual abilities I don't think any of them are completely out of green, so I'm probably over reacting.

I'm not a big fan of this design at all. This is likely the wordiest card in the history of Magic. All the normal conventions of good planeswalker design seem to have been thrown out, to try to achieve some specific flavours.

I would've thought that adding a non-activated ability on a planeswalker was something to be avoided at all costs. It's unnecessary and clunky here, and it's a sixth ability on the already-wordiest card ever. Not only is it poor in those departments, it's also a bit random. Garruk trasnforms when either a creature hits him, or when he eats a 2/2. That's not exciting, nor does it make sense. Surely it would've been possible to have the transform ability be part of one of the abilities. It's almost always going to trigger because of Garruk using his second ("fight") ability anyway.

There are two interesting transformation conditions that could've been used here. One is that both sides have one ability that transforms the card, and he'll switch back and forth a few times during the game. Another is that Garruk's front face ultimate also transforms him. (It wouldn't be a very difficult ultimate ability to pay for, maybe a "fight" ability that costs -4 or -X, with the other ability on the front being a normal +1.) It'd be like he levels up into evil super-Garruk.

Given that most three-ability planeswalkers use simple abilities where possible - because it cuts down the complexity of an already complex card - I would've assumed that such an approach would've been applied at least as much to a planeswalker with six abilities. However, there are multiple complex abilities on this card. Creating two different but similar Wolf tokens is just crazy. Four of the five real abilities on the card are more complicated versions of simpler abilties. The ultimate ability's graveyard-overrun ability is directly anti-synergistic to the token-making abilities. People would be most likely to sacrifice one of their breeds of wolf to tutor for a creature, and not sacrifice a real card creature. After all, once Garruk has transformed, he's going to have to make at least one wolf, before doing his ultimate ability. So his ultimate is not really related to the first two abilities. If you draw Garruk early, you won't use his ultimate at all. If you draw it late, you'll make two wolves, and batter the opponent for 14. With so many complicated abilities, a web of much more interesting abilities could've been created. (Or the same planeswalker could've been created with five or four mostly-simple abilities.)

I see part of the complexity problem here as being that the back of Garruk has been forced into black-green, by trying to make three G+B abilities, rather than abilities that are G or B, or even just abilities that overlap (like unearth) or stick together nicely (like destroy target permanent).

This card is an iconic new planeswalker, yet it looks like it's plagued by poor design choices.

That's my two cents anyway. :>

Haters gonna hate.

This looks like the most useful DFC yet. Which is a real pity. I'd hoped the Marked Cards mechanic would disappear into an abyss, but this card is easily splashable into any part-green deck (more so than any previous green planeswalker), and provides removal and tutoring - two of my favourite things. He's going to keep turning up in card searches for when I want to build some casual deck, and I'm going to have to keep saying "No, I don't have that many card sleeves" or "No, I'm not playing with Fiddly Marked Cards in this deck".

He's also a spectacularly bad choice for a DFC, because you really have to pity the poor, poor players who draw a checklist card with "Garruk Relentless" checked. Good luck remembering all six abilities' costs/triggers, effects, and the starting loyalty. Yick.

Magic has often had environments which reward the player with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the environment. Fair enough. But you have to have literally thirteen pieces of trivia about this one card memorised in order to know whether to play him or not when you draw him. Thirteen pieces of information that aren't printed on the card you draw.

In fact, even if you're not using checklists and you've got opaque sleeves, you still have to remember all the details of the back side to know whether to cast him...

Ugh. I just keep coming back to "I can't believe Wizards actually played with these cards and found the absurd fiddliness was worth it".