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Tynion |
If you remember waaaay back in the day, we held Avatar Week,
and during that week, we published the article to end all articles called
Avatars of Magic.
The article basically was a duel between two fan favorites, myself *takes a
bow* and Death_by_Beebles.
Since I quickly dispatched Beebles in that article, I am now seeking fresh
meat, and where better to search for fresh meat than in the new members of
the Writer’s Guild.
Step inside and see who I found to take on this time around! |
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Tynion |
 Lorwyn
does something that has not ever happened before, and that is introducing
new card types to Magic: the Gathering. Having played the game for the last
one hundred and twenty years, I found myself eerily excited, yet dubious at
the same time.
I sat and daydreamed numerous times about what could be
and what should be when it came to Planeswalkers, as I felt pretty sure that
Tribal cards would stink – and for the most part, I feel I was right.
Planeswalkers have always been described to me as overly powerful creatures
that had abilities and strengths that could not be represented on a single
card.
Then again, I always believed that Mishra was a
Planeswalker, and here he ends up on a card. I later was told that he was
not a Planeswalker, just a powerful mage, regardless of what he was, I would
then counterpoint that Teferi is/was a Planeswalker and is a card too!
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Maleficent |
(Actually, Mishra was an artificer who knew nothing of magic.
Same as Urza, before he became a 'walker. They were brothers, you know. And
Teferi lost his planeswalking "spark" in healing a time rift, hence his
card. Sheesh, do you know nothing?! ) |
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Tynion |
All of that said, here come Planeswalkers as
a card type. When I saw them I shook my head. You
have to be kidding right? They are my buddy? You mean to tell me that a
Planeswalker is a guy standing next to me, holding a conversation while my
beasts are fighting in a vicious duel? Are you trying to bring Magic down to
a level of Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokemon? As that is what I began to visualize.
Especially since having cruised past the Yu-Gi-Oh! cartoon on TV, where you
have your guys in the back cheering you on, and your monsters are running at
each other on the board out front. That is what Magic is tumbling towards?
Alas, I must deal with the cards I am dealt. So I looked
at the cards created, and realized what I had realized in the past… Magic
never capitalizes on what they create. Want an example or two?
Cycling was originally done in the Urza Cycle. Guess what…
it sucked! It was better in the Onslaught Block (how many years later?), but
not until Time Spiral was Cycling actually used to trigger something such as
Madness.
Look at Morph! Morph was really bad in Onslaught. Legions
improved it, but only because they wanted to figure a way to get instants
into an all creature set, and finally, a number of years later, Time Spiral
brings it back and makes it a good mechanic.
So what would possibly make me think that Planeswalkers
would be good? Reading the spoiler did not convince me that I was wrong.
Why is it that when a new mechanic or in this case, card
type, comes out, that we must initially create a cycle of color-sensitive
cards that must be the same concepts rehashed? Why should I have not
expected there to be five Planeswalkers in the initial set, one for each
color, and each Planeswalker was going to be something along the lines of,
‘Red guy will do some damage’, Black guy will play with the graveyard’, etc.
Can we not try something new ever?
Since we are having four sets in this Block, should I
safely assume that there is going to be five Planewalkers per set? How about
the next set having Blue-White, Blue-Black, Black-Red, Red-Green, and
Green-White Planeswalkers? Then, the third set can have opposite color
combinations. Then the final set can try to throw a monkey wrench into the
gears by having artifact Planeswalkers, and perhaps they can have three
color Planewalkers.
The bottom line of my initial disappointment of
Planeswalkers is that you always told me that Planewalkers were ultra
powerful beings, and then when you create them, they are ‘aight’ at best. So
let me show you what I feel is a good Planeswalker should look like:
Kigar Velor - 2WW
Planeswalker - Kigar
Whenever you would gain life, gain that much life +2 and put a loyalty
counter on Kigoar Velor.
-1: Prevent all damage dealt to Kigor Velor. All creatures become 0/1
creatures and lose all abilities until end of turn. You may play this
ability as an instant.
-8: Destroy all creatures. They can not be regenerated.
4
This would be a powerful ally. The guy stands there and
his presence alone increases your strength (you gain an additional +2 life).
Whenever a creature gets a chance to take a swing at her, she Humbles the
entire board, and so the damage would be reduced to 0. Finally, when she has
enough of the creature shenanigans, she kills all the creatures and resets
the board.
The ability to sneak around the gain one counter per turn
is offset by the fact that you need to continually gain life to increase her
number of counters.
This is a powerful ally indeed. This is more like what I
would anticipate a Planeswalker looking like. Not just a mixture of two or
three spells attached with pre-chewed bubble gum to a pacified creature.
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Maleficent |
Poor Tynion, I pity your flavorless ways. See, you're
thinking of the old Planeswalkers, when they used to be super powerful
beings. Time Spiral changed all that, and now they're all just a bunch of
wussy wannabes. Granted, they're far more powerful than "normal" beings, but
nowhere close to their former glory. But this is
part of the reason why we have planeswalker cards at all. Otherwise they
would be too powerful for play, as Tynion demonstrated so well above
(really, a potential Wrath each turn on a nearly unkillable card, at the
same cost as Wrath itself?). But never fear, my children - Mal is here! (Or
maybe you should fear) with a tribute to liches everywhere!
Lysekk the Atrophic - BBBB
Planeswalker - Lysekk
+X: Discard X cards. If you can't, you lose the game.
-4: Remove any number of cards in your graveyard from the game. At end of
turn, you lose that much life and draw that many cards.
-4: Sacrifice a creature. You may play a card in your graveyard with
converted mana cost equal to the sacrificed creature's without paying its
mana cost.
All of his spells have the bad habit of eating away anything they
touch, much to his amusement. <--Flavor text
on a Planeswalker!!!
4
 Now
I know how much Tynion hates sacrifices, but I feel much differently on the
matter. Discarding cards for Lysekk's first ability allows you to take use
of madness and reanimation for free, while gaining loyalty counters. But not
everything you discard will be useful, so you can remove them for extra
cards (and counters). This second ability also hearkens back to the dreaded
Necropotence; a card that masterfully proves the futility of life compared
to power. As for the rest of the cards in your grave, a little payment in
blood is all you need to get them going. A being's life-force is much more
potent than mana, as any good Black mage could tell you.
Of course, you could use either of Lysekk's last two
abilities without feeding him cards from your hand, but he won't be so loyal
to you without proper payment. Either way, he's not good in every deck, and
being Black he shouldn't be. Black likes to play by itself, at the expense
of others. And being a generally back-stabbing lot, it wouldn't be a very
good idea to buddy up with any of them, anyway. |
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Tynion |
Note to Mal and all dead guys everywhere:
You keep sacrificing your life to gain power and get big ole' nasties into
play, and I will keep on killing your one creature or countering your
reanimation spells. Seriously, how does your
Planeswalker compare to mine? You are throwing your entire hand away, and
for every four cards you discard, you get to draw into four cards. While
that sounds really nice, all I have to do is keep casting spells that gain
me life and I can keep your creature army at bay. The first thing that I
thought of when I was designing this create was Pyromania. Ohh.. redirect my
one point of damage to her, humble all the creatures in play, and it is a
cheaper Wrath!
Regardless, Planeswalkers are by definition superior
beings to creatures. So they should be tough to play against. They should
not be weak and do things like.. Add one counter to me, and I will do one
damage for you. That is sissy crap and everyone knows it. A dog-gone
Prodigal Sorcerer does that for less mana! |
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Maleficent |
In truth, they don't compare, because yours is more broken
than a redneck's wife. Like I said, if the old 'walkers were still around,
that'd be a good example. But this here's a new age, and you old fogeys
better get it or get out. While I wholeheartedly agree they're a bunch of
sissy crap compared to what they should be, if they were what they should
be, they'd be too powerful to play. Look at Kigar.
All you need is a card or two in play that'll gain you life, and you
basically win the game, since you can wipe the board whenever you feel like
it. For four mana. Burn doesn't matter, because you're simultaneously
gaining a ton of life and piling on loyalty counters each turn. Can you
imagine how many kids you'll make cry with this? Think of the children!
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Tynion |
Screw the children! Why can't a child beg
his mother enough to get a few bucks out of her pocket and buy a Vindicate
or two. How about mixing in a little Boomerang or three. Perhaps even
consider a countering spell? Or better yet, how about Wizards provide us
with a card that would kill a planeswalker?
Children's Vindication 1WB
Instant Common
Destroy target permanent. It can't be regenerated.
There, would that make it a safer place for the children?
They could buy a pack of cards and get one and kill my precious Kigar.
However, speaking on the topic of how easy it is to put
counters on a planeswalker, look at how ridiculously easy it is to put them
on yours!
First, we discard five cards, adding five counters,
bringing us up to nine. Then, we can lose four counters, remove five cards
from the grave, and draw into five cards. Noting that we are now sitting at
five loyalty counters. I continue this process until I have a nasty creature
in the grave, and a chump in play and can toss the nasty guy into play for a
cost of.. nothing. Wow.. and Kigor is bad. At least I could Disenchant
Necropotence! Necropotence removed the cards going to the grave from the
game. Your cards are all there ripe for the pickings. Sheesh!
Good thing I created my Children's Vindication so the kids
can kill your broken planeswalker. |
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Maleficent |
The difference between mine and yours, though, are what you
can do with the counters. The example you give for Lysekk takes several
turns. Kigor can easily blow the board to smithereens as soon as you drop
it, and every turn after, all the while gaining you an absurd amount of life
(not to mention the Humbling ability, which would probably be rarely used,
if ever). That's not Magic; that's slaughter. And while I'm all for
slaughter, it's just more fun when they can fight back a little.
I guess that's what it comes down to: Fun vs. winning. While
you may enjoy boosting your life higher than a hippie while clearing the
board each turn until your opponent runs out of cards, I don't. But perhaps
we should let the readers judge? |
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Tynion |
*Ignores the hippie comment as to not
laugh and lose my argument* I agree, let's have the readers have the
last say, but before that happens, let me ask you to give me a scenario
where I could wipe the board on the same turn as I play Kigor, and every
turn afterwards. Keeping in mind that once Kigor comes into play, it is on!
Are you kidding me? The minute you played her, I would be pulling Lighting
Bolts out of my Mono Green deck and would be blasting her like crazy. Why
wouldn't they have a chance? All you need is a way
to gain life three separate ways each turn, no matter how much. Seeing how
life is pretty easy to come by, it would be a simple thing to load your deck
full of cards that tap for life, creatures with lifelink, or things like
Angel's Feather. And it seems you may have forgotten your own first ability
- she's untouchable by damage. In the case they may have permanent
destruction or bounce up their sleeves, just save some mana for a
counterspell (or not), which I'm sure you'd have plenty of anyway, aye?
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Tynion |
Perhaps you are right.. but as any Blue mage would do.. I
prefer to be right! Being the last speaker is always the best way to be
right, and I will close our argument by stating the obvious, she is able to
prevent damage one time a turn and it requires her to lose a loyalty counter
in order to use that ability. And so we turn the
battle over to you, the readers. Who is right? Myself and Kigar? or Mal and
Lysekk the Broken?
Its up to you.. I am counting on you! So is Kigar!
Time to get to voting! <click here to vote>
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[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]
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.
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