I imagine they will also print a lot of PW hate to balance this. I wouldn't be surprised to see a "Destroy all Planeswalkers" card for instance. Maybe even a chupa but for PW only.
(Maybe Bounty Agent just got better as a sideboard option? )
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Four is just the right number, so you can play a playset in your legacy red deck. He's like gamble++ on a stick! Without the good parts.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
0
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Various hints and speculation already had me pretty sure this set would be planeswalker focused and have more than usual, but I expected it to be something like planeswalkers at rare or all mythics being walkers or something. One guaranteed per pack is banana pants, even if they are likely to be less bomb-y than usual (and we've been trained for more situational/low-powered walkers for a few sets, in preparation for this)
It's very weird that the extremely cool stained glass illustrations apparently won't appear on any cards at all. Seems like a perfect opportunity for a masterpiece series tbh?
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
I'm either real bad or real unlucky in the extremely nonsense format Omniscience draft.
I tried to grab any kind of card draw or card advantage, but I think maybe I underdrafted removal and counterspells. Really would have liked some sweepers too, seems even better in this than normal limited.
I imagine they will also print a lot of PW hate to balance this. I wouldn't be surprised to see a "Destroy all Planeswalkers" card for instance. Maybe even a chupa but for PW only.
(Maybe Bounty Agent just got better as a sideboard option? )
Bounty Agent specifically does not kill planeswalkers (except for Gideon Jura).
I imagine they will also print a lot of PW hate to balance this. I wouldn't be surprised to see a "Destroy all Planeswalkers" card for instance. Maybe even a chupa but for PW only.
(Maybe Bounty Agent just got better as a sideboard option? )
Bounty Agent specifically does not kill planeswalkers (except for Gideon Jura).
reminder: dominaria also had "a legend in every pack" and what it meant was that a lot of them were hot dogshit
but Dominaria was also a sweet limited format!
I think I said this before but if they hadn’t just put out one of the best limited formats of all time I’d be a lot more pessimistic about WAR, but they’ve earned a lot of good will.
They've clearly been making changes to play that better accommodate this proliferation, but I hope that 1) this Oprah-style approach to planeswalkers isn't a top-down financial decision pushed by Hasbro to sell packs, and 2) that there's been a ton of testing demonstrating that constructed formats aren't irrecoverably warped.
A success here IMO is probably like gnome said, similar to the legendaries in Dominara.
I've played for years now with planeswalkers but admittedly still a bit curmudgeonly about them.
Steam: FeloniousMoz
+1
ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I mean they have theme sets around every other permanent type so Planeswalker was an inevitability. If you've followed Mark Rosewater's columns/podcasts, he always states that your theme has to be evident at common/in every pack so this really seems like the only way to do that.
Even if this were some sort of top down mandate they would have done it at some point anyways I'm sure.
ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I'm going to guess:
Some cycle with static abilities, therefore being attackable enchantments. They'll probably also have other loyalty abilities.
Some group with ONLY negative loyalty abilities.
Maybe some double faced?
I don't think there'll be any double faced ones as that requires a special printing sheet, and they're presumably already doing special printing things to get a walker in every pack. Every thing you change there adds a bunch of money to the printing process.
Not really concerned at all about the power level or format wrapping of so many Planeswalkers. A down-shift in rarity means they'll definitely be weaker and probably means not all of them will have three abilities or ultimates. An uncommon Planeswalker might be more akin to an artifact or enchantment with one ability that you can activate at any time in your turn.
I think the bigger risk is that they won't feel special anymore.
0
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Some cycle with static abilities, therefore being attackable enchantments. They'll probably also have other loyalty abilities.
Some group with ONLY negative loyalty abilities.
Maybe some double faced?
We could even ones that are just a single +0 ability and nothing else.
There's a ton of PW design space that has never been touched because they all had to justify a Mythic rarity.
Not really concerned at all about the power level or format wrapping of so many Planeswalkers. A down-shift in rarity means they'll definitely be weaker and probably means not all of them will have three abilities or ultimates. An uncommon Planeswalker might be more akin to an artifact or enchantment with one ability that you can activate at any time in your turn.
I think the bigger risk is that they won't feel special anymore.
If this was the new normal I feel like they wouldn't feel special but as a one off I think that's totally fine. Creatures weren't any less special after Legions, people still like artifacts after Mirrodin, etc.
+1
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Not really concerned at all about the power level or format wrapping of so many Planeswalkers. A down-shift in rarity means they'll definitely be weaker and probably means not all of them will have three abilities or ultimates. An uncommon Planeswalker might be more akin to an artifact or enchantment with one ability that you can activate at any time in your turn.
I think the bigger risk is that they won't feel special anymore.
I think part of the motivation for this is that they kind of already don't? There are neat planeswalkers out there but a lot of them get rightfully criticized as being a variation on
+X generate some minor card or tempo advantage
-Y remove a thing
-lots win the game
and there are plenty of interesting variations on that but I think it's time to change things up.
Dominion was a sweet limited format partly because of all the legends at uncommon. It made you feel like you were doing super powerful things and if they can recapture that magic for war of the spark, I will be super excited to draft it. I do worry it will be hard to balance because planeswalkers get better in multiples. The more you have out, the harder it is to deal with them via creatures. This gets worse if you have planeswalkers that can defend themselves or creatures to force bad attacks but I'm sure they've thought of that and will print planeswalkers that aren't broken with constructed level removal.
Battlenet ID: NullPointer
+1
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
It seems pretty obvious to me that:
1) not all 36 will game-winning bombs, at least some are going to be more mediocre/situational
2) format will have more ways to deal with planeswalkers than usual, since there are so many
But I guess we'll see. Even if it ends up not being a complete success I really like that they do new, weird things. But I also have the luxury of not really caring about any of the competitive constructed formats.
gonna just draft Creatures.dek and run over people trying to do cute things
+1
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I think even outside making a lot mediocre/situational there are a lot of things you can do with them that open up lines of play while not creating "deal with this or lose" board positions. Like think of this guy
RR
2 loyalty
-1 create a 2/1 red goblin token
-2 deal 3 damage to any target
Speaking of that, I feel like (post rotation) it'd be cool to get a Better Lightning Strike for RR. Not necessarily deal 4 to any target, but some sort of juicy upside to deal 3 to any target
There's also the slight constraint where each 'Walker has to feel like their character. I can't see any existing Walkers creating gobbos, but Tibalt could create 2/1 fiends or something
I ate an engineer
0
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
There's also the slight constraint where each 'Walker has to feel like their character. I can't see any existing Walkers creating gobbos, but Tibalt could create 2/1 fiends or something
I wrote them as 1/1 gobbos, then decided that was boring and switched them to 2/1s, which I knew probably wouldn't be gobbos but I had already thought about it too much.
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You didn't wait for us to have a response! I could have countered your post
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
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Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
I imagine they will also print a lot of PW hate to balance this. I wouldn't be surprised to see a "Destroy all Planeswalkers" card for instance. Maybe even a chupa but for PW only.
(Maybe Bounty Agent just got better as a sideboard option? )
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
I think I did in the other thread, actually.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Most of them were at least halfway solid in limited! But yeah we could get more Tiblats, which is fine.
Four foil Tibalts.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
It's very weird that the extremely cool stained glass illustrations apparently won't appear on any cards at all. Seems like a perfect opportunity for a masterpiece series tbh?
I tried to grab any kind of card draw or card advantage, but I think maybe I underdrafted removal and counterspells. Really would have liked some sweepers too, seems even better in this than normal limited.
Bounty Agent specifically does not kill planeswalkers (except for Gideon Jura).
Oh, yeah. Dang.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
but Dominaria was also a sweet limited format!
I think I said this before but if they hadn’t just put out one of the best limited formats of all time I’d be a lot more pessimistic about WAR, but they’ve earned a lot of good will.
A success here IMO is probably like gnome said, similar to the legendaries in Dominara.
I've played for years now with planeswalkers but admittedly still a bit curmudgeonly about them.
Even if this were some sort of top down mandate they would have done it at some point anyways I'm sure.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Some cycle with static abilities, therefore being attackable enchantments. They'll probably also have other loyalty abilities.
Some group with ONLY negative loyalty abilities.
Maybe some double faced?
I think the bigger risk is that they won't feel special anymore.
We could even ones that are just a single +0 ability and nothing else.
There's a ton of PW design space that has never been touched because they all had to justify a Mythic rarity.
??? Domri Teyo
Ral Tamiyo Karn
Jaya Tibalt ???
Kiora Sorin Teferi
Angrath Dovin Ajani
Arlinn Nixilis Jiang
Huatli Sarkhan Saheeli
Narset Nahiri Ugin
Davriel Vraska Kaya
Jace Gideon Liliana
Nissa Chandra Vivien
If this was the new normal I feel like they wouldn't feel special but as a one off I think that's totally fine. Creatures weren't any less special after Legions, people still like artifacts after Mirrodin, etc.
I think part of the motivation for this is that they kind of already don't? There are neat planeswalkers out there but a lot of them get rightfully criticized as being a variation on
+X generate some minor card or tempo advantage
-Y remove a thing
-lots win the game
and there are plenty of interesting variations on that but I think it's time to change things up.
1) not all 36 will game-winning bombs, at least some are going to be more mediocre/situational
2) format will have more ways to deal with planeswalkers than usual, since there are so many
But I guess we'll see. Even if it ends up not being a complete success I really like that they do new, weird things. But I also have the luxury of not really caring about any of the competitive constructed formats.
RR
2 loyalty
-1 create a 2/1 red goblin token
-2 deal 3 damage to any target
I wrote them as 1/1 gobbos, then decided that was boring and switched them to 2/1s, which I knew probably wouldn't be gobbos but I had already thought about it too much.
Thanks!
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