Hello, MTG fans, to another exciting edition of “If I Worked at R&D…”! I’m your eternal host, Luthervamplord. As I am sure that we all now know, Lorwyn is upon us, and with this brand new set comes a brand new card type: Planeswalker.

Now for those of you who aren’t in the know about how these newfangled cards work, I suggest that you visit the Planeswalker Mini-site found here.

By now you have probably guessed that I’m going to create a planeswalker card for you; but there’s a little hidden twist. Way, way, way back in the good old days I ran a little contest/poll in the forums of this very website to see which posters people most wanted to see created as Vanguard cards.

Those cards are something that I have been continually working on since then to make them feel “right”, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t nail them down. The distances involved in a Vanguard card being “outside” of the field of play ruined the feel that I wanted for these cards. Then came the planeswalker card type, and my solution was clear; my Vanguard cards needed to be planeswalkers to get what I was going for.

So, ladies and gentlemen, creatures of the night and champions of hope, the surviving independents and the willing slaves of Yawgmoth, I’m going to gift you with not one, not two, but three planeswalker cards based upon the top three winners from my age-old Vanguard contest.

The Problem and its Solution

Before we can even start to do this, though, we have to go through a complicated process in the space of a few days; one which I took me the better part of three weeks to do for ordinary Magic: We need to figure out the base math.

Let me explain; when looking at certain abilities and costs on existing Magic cards, you will notice certain patterns in costs and effects. Slowly, you are able to attribute these costs to effects and even use them to estimate to a high level of accuracy the cost of an entirely unique ability.

As I said before, I took three solid weeks to do this for Magic cards, and there are around ten thousand cards for me to use to prove our evolving theory again and again. Unfortunately, I don’t have this amount of time or even cards to look at for planeswalkers. This means that I need to be incredibly careful with my assumptions and, where possible, proving this theory.

When we look at the planeswalkers in Lorwyn, we are no doubt blown away by the array of powers that they have; but when you stop to consider it, aren’t these just reruns? Take Ajani for example; his first ability is a scaled-down Hope Charm or Reaping the Rewards. Garruk is sporting the Overrun ability and even Chandra is sporting a weak Chaos Charm. When you really boil it down, all the planeswalkers are simply a culmination of selective abilities from helpful utility spells. By utility, I mean that the spell alone will not win the game or even swing it in your favor, but it will get you closer to the ideal situation your deck needs or at least hold off your opponent’s deck.

But you see, this is helpful; it makes the job of power-scaling these new cards much easier. All we need to do is compare the abilities to the existing ones, use the existing math of those abilities, and see how it translates across to planeswalkers! Simple, no?

Let’s take Chandra and Ajani as the basis for our work. There are a few assumptions we can make based just upon these two about the basic rules for Planeswalkers thus far:

• They are all rare
• They all sport three abilities, divided into one with a positive-costing ability and two with negative-costing abilities.
• Their mana cost always consists of two colored mana, regardless of overall converted mana cost.

And when we carry these assumptions over, we soon realize that they’re correct. Now at this point it would be easy to jump to the assumption that all of the positive abilities have a loyalty cost of +1, but when we look at Jace Beleren we see that this is not the case.

Okay, as we have already discussed in our initial viewing of the cards, both Ajani and Chandra are sporting +1-costing abilities, which constitute to one third of a charm spell. In fact, when we look at all the planeswalkers, we can draw an almost direct line between their abilities and those of charm spells. In the case of Garruk, we exchange the effect “one permanent” with “two lands” as is shown on Emerald Charm, which is quite similar power-wise – a reduction in available targets for an increase in the number affected balances out when carried across to ordinary cards. This fact is evident in Red burn spells in particular; take Carbonize and Thunderclap for example – the reduction in targets allows for Thunderclap to have an alternate cost effect. And when we consider Jace, we must take into consideration that the effect benefits each player and as such it becomes obvious that it should have some kind of compensation for the controlling player, hence the +2 loyalty cost.

The second abilities cause us some problems, though, as there are no direct correlations between the costs of the cards that they are based upon. Chandra is sporting half a Blaze and Ajani has something resembling Titania’s Boon. In fact, the only link between the two is that they both come from sorcery spells. This means we must throw out the initial assumption that all three abilities are equal to one another on each planeswalker, and so we progress to the next logical step – that the sum of all the abilities will be even across each of the planeswalkers.

The last abilities of these two planeswalkers support this theory well initially; Chandra has an extremely powerful version of Flame Wave and Ajani creates weak token versions of Serra Avatar. I say initially because when you consider how much more it would cost to increase the damage threshold on Flame Wave and how much you could add or subtract from Serra Avatar’s cost to make Ajani’s ability, then you see the problem that we have.

But maybe we’ve been tackling this from the wrong angle; perhaps rather then trying to discover the cost of the abilities and then try and tie them to the planeswalkers overall, we should subtract the cost of the abilities we know out and then work from there!

Let’s take Chandra: She has a cost of 3RR with six loyalty counters, with an ability that works out at about one-third R and another with a converted mana cost of about ten mana (as it would cost around this much to make Flame Wave deal ten damage). But wait, there’s the missing key – loyalty! You gain or lose loyalty to use the abilities and this raises or reduces the staying power of your planeswalker. Plus, they can be targeted both directly and indirectly, so we must consider the value of loyalty as a factor as well. And when we look at the last ability on every planeswalker, it always costs more than the starting loyalty for it.

Taking this into consideration, we must consider loyalty as a sort of counter system and the ability to increase those counters as a pro and not a con. This means we can ignore the cost of the first ability and now consider mana and loyalty to work on a similar scale. Based upon Chandra’s last ability, it’s asking you to pay eight loyalty for a ten-mana effect; and when we consider it, Ajani’s ability roughly translates to asking you to pay six loyalty for a four to five mana ability - look at Serra Avatar, and consider that the recursion ability it sports costs around two to three colored mana.

We’re not quite there yet, but there is something here that could present the answer: Ajani’s and Chandra’s relative mana costs – Chandra costs more to put into play. What this means is that although you have a potentially more powerful ability, under normal circumstances you will have to wait longer for it to be played.

Okay, taking all of this down and collating our findings, we have come up with the following “rules” for constructing our own planeswalker cards:

• The more loyalty the first ability restores, the weaker it must be.
• The faster the planeswalker can be played, the weaker the power-to-loyalty ratio must be.
• The last ability must always cost more to play than the initial value the planeswalker has when it enters play
• All abilities have some direct relation to a pre-existing card in MTG and do not deviate from the overall existing style.

I admit this is not a great set of rules to build a set of cards from, but we must consider that we are working with very little material and with very little time. Although, it would be interesting to see how many of these assumptions and conclusions hold true when further cards are released.

Nevertheless, I feel if we keep a level head and don’t give into our power-gamer urges, we can produce a set of fair and balanced planeswalkers. Are you ready?

First up – and this was no real contest – the top-scoring contestant in the deciding poll is none other than the one and only Streetz! [Editor's Note: WOOHOO!  ~Streetz~]

Now flavor wise I see Streetz being a controlling planeswalker; after all, he has the final say on any articles that get posted on the website, he has control of all the moderator powers in the forum, and generally what he says, goes.

Taking that view and relating it to MTG, you can draw direct lines to certain styles of abilities: Articles could be compared to enchantments and artifacts of the forum, the ability to correct posts has the feel of a counterspell to me, and permission rights sounds like creature control or inhibition to me.

Let’s take creature control as our first ability – it’s the most universal of the lot and just seems like a good starting block. Remembering that most of the original planeswalkers have abilities comparable to the Charm spells, we should follow suit in doing so too, and the first one that comes to mind is Ivory Charm and its -2/-0 ability. But of course, using that ability during your own turn doesn’t seem that great of an idea, so we’ll have it last until the start of your next upkeep; and since it affects both you and your opponent in equal parts – you for blocking and them for attacking – I suggest that we set the cost at +2:

“+2: All creatures get -2/-0 until your next upkeep.”

We’re going to be ramping up loyalty quickly with this ability, so perhaps we should have one variable activation cost ability. When you consider that and keep in mind the two remaining fields of ability; cards such as Disenchant come to mind:

“-X: Destroy each artifact or enchantment with converted mana cost X or less.”

All that leaves us with is permission – do we go down the route of Counterspell or a more “lockdown” feel? Well, so far we’ve used White abilities, so Counterspell would feel somewhat out of sync and as such I propose a more protective lockdown approach:

“-6: All creatures and lands you control gain shroud until your next upkeep.”

We have the abilities done; now for the body. His abilities are all weaker than the existing planeswalkers, so he should be quick to play, but of course we also have to take into consideration that we must have less than six starting loyalty. As such I suggest a loyalty of three and a mana cost of 1WW. The reason for this is simple: Even though you could have him out on turn three, his second and third abilities probably won’t come into play until turn five or six, and even then that’s only if he isn’t damaged beforehand.

So here we go, card number one: Streetz!

Click the thumbnail to see the card image in full.

Next up is a close friend of mine. He’s just taken over the writer’s clan, he’s been a big player in the background of MDV for quite some time, and he’s well-known for his epic ranting skills. Ladies and gentlemen, it could only be the reigning rant champion of the world: Tynion!

Tynion’s well-known rants and his ability to make things happen in the background really invoke a sense of the Dimir; a view that is definitely in contrast to Tynion’s self-professed Izzet streak. Nevertheless, you must go where the muse takes you.

The Dimir were known for a few good things: Card drawing and discard, as well as deck manipulation. With this in mind, we’ll go for abilities along that theme, and the first and most universal would have to be either draw or discard. Since draw occurs more often than discard, we’ll take that route first. I don’t want to copy Jace’s ability, though, so let’s try a different angle:

“+1: Draw two cards, then discard two cards.”

Next up will be the discard ability. When I consider discard, the one card that always comes to mind is Unburden:

“-3: Target player discards two cards.”

The last ability will fall under deck manipulation, but does that mean tutoring or mill? Personally, I’m drawn towards mill for card like Glimpse the Unthinkable and Szadek, Lord of Secrets. In fact, the vampire’s ability could be quite fun to play around with (no bias here at all…):

“-7: Until end of the turn, creatures you control have, ‘If this creature would deal combat damage to a player, instead that player puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.’”

Right, the flavor is there; we just need a frame for it to sit on. In this case, the ability to draw two cards and then discard two cards is quite powerful in some decks, especially due to the colors involved in playing this card. But by the same token, there are no immediate benefits to this ability. However, the second and third abilities offer some quite direct and powerful benefits, so I suggest a cost of 2UB and a loyalty of four; the reasons being that in the average deck you wouldn’t be able to pull off that last ability until turn six or seven, yet the second ability could have some early benefits; hence a midrange cost and loyalty.

Click the thumbnail to see the card image in full.

Last and by no means least, we have a character that has been with MDV for quite some time. He’s recreated his image several times, but the most prominent ones are scantly clad anime chicks and creepy little insects: It’s Tekkactus!

Now Tekk, I like scantly-clad women as much as the next hot-blooded male, but somehow I can’t see Streetz taking too kindly to my using that as a theme for your card. As such, I’m going to take the bug route.

Well, bugs mean tokens and tokens are strongly in the Green section of the color pie; though now I consider it, Black likes Insects, too, so we can play around with Black and Green abilities. Doesn’t this suggest a death and rebirth theme similar to the cycle of Golgari cards in the Ravnica block?

Well, first things first: We want bugs, and I don’t know about you but it seems to me that when you find one; you’ll find another:

“+1: Put 2 1/1 Green and Black Insect token creatures into play under your control.”

Let us now consider our options with Green: Pump, land searching, and big creatures. We don’t want to double up on the above ability, but carrying on the creature theme sounds like fun:

“-3: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.”

With a more or less Green and Black ability and a wholly Green one, Black is our last point of call. By now, we all know Black can do two things to creatures rather well, and those are reducing power and toughness and destroying creatures. Keeping the Insect theme: Bugs usually turn up around diseased and plagued areas; perhaps something like Pestilence is in order here:

“-6: Until your next upkeep, whenever a creature you control is put into the graveyard from play, all creatures get -1/-1 until end of the turn.”

Tekk’s got skill; all of his abilities relate to one another, and that makes for sweet play. Plus, getting two creatures for the first ability helps to make your planeswalker hang around longer, which is quite powerful. This suggests that Tekk needs to be restricted to the late game, so a cost of 3BG wouldn’t be too bad a deal since Green can get to that amount fairly quickly, but to further reduce the madness that is this card, I suggest a starting loyalty of three.

But you see, Tekk really is a unique character on the forum and as such; he needs a unique twist. Thanks to Michael_Zeora's advice - Tekk is a Tribal Planeswalker!

Click the thumbnail to see the card image in full.

Well, folks, that’s going to do it for this article, but don’t believe for one minute that this is the end of planeswalkers in this series, no sir. I intend to come back to these guys in the future to see if my assumptions and conclusions were right and refine the math of the process, so watch this space.

If you have comments, feedback and criticism it is always welcome – I’m a big boy; I can take it. Feel free to post in the forum here or email direct at my current email address.

This is Luthervamplord; signing off.

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
Find other articles by this author here.
Find other articles from this series here.

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Articles Spotlights from 2007:
Lorwyn Theme Week Intro & Schedule of Events
Blink And Bounce: Timing is Key
Going Blind: XCB Metagaming - A Prolonged Conclusion.
The Science of Magic: Genetic Engineering, Part Two.
Shifting Lineaments: Casual Metagaming (Pt. 2).
The Dungeon Of Malefict: Pure Evil!
Land Week Introduction & Schedule.
Combofusion: Legends Timeshifted.
One Card to Rule Them All: Coastal Piracy
Irrational Love: Chimeras. The Lego's of Magic.