Post by goldensandslash on May 4, 2019 12:53:10 GMT
War of the Spark has arrived, and it has given us 36+2+1 new planeswalker cards. (The "+2" is from planeswalker decks, and the "+1" is the buy-a-box promo.)
This has started a lot of discussion in the Magic community about whether planeswalkers should be allowed to be your commander in the Commander format.
The Commander Rules Committee voted on this recently, and, by a unanimous decision, voted no. Indeed, it seems that the only people who actually want planeswalkers as commanders are those who haven't given it much thought at all.
So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain why planeswalker commanders would be a terrible terrible idea.
Let's start by saying this: I get the appeal of it. You need a character to represent the general leading your army. And planeswalkers would work for this. Flavorfully, it makes sense that a planeswalker can be your commander. It's also not like Commander hasn't gone through changes before. When the format first began, you could only have an Elder Dragon from Legends as your commander. This was later extended to all legendary creatures.
But the problem with planeswalkers is two-fold. One, each planeswalker (prior to War of the Spark) has three to four activated abilities that you can choose between every turn. Creatures with that many abilities are an extreme rarity. The fact is that planeswalkers have a lot more options every turn. Two, planeswalkers are immune to creature removal spells. A lot of Commander decks rely on creature removal to deal with opposing commanders. The fact that this wouldn't work would be maddening. Yeah, there are planeswalker removal spells, but far fewer of those exist.
And that's the problem with planeswalker commanders on the surface level. Let's go deeper now. We're going to imagine that we've been invited to play Commander with a playgroup that has "house ruled" that planeswalkers are legal commanders. We're now going to try to break the format. Spoiler alert: It isn't very hard.
Elspeth Tirel || 3WW || Legendary Planeswalker -- Elspeth || 4 || [+2]: You gain 1 life for each creature you control. || [−2]: Create three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens. || [−5]: Destroy all other permanents except for lands and tokens.
Here's my commander: Elspeth Tirel. She comes in, +2's herself up to six loyalty, and then ultimates the next turn, nuking everyone's board. How lovely. Can you remove her before this happens? Sure. But then she goes back to the command zone and threatens to do it again shortly thereafter. Destroying all nonland permanents is insane! Sure, she can't do it the turn she comes in, but she can do it the turn after. Imagine if this was a creature. If we want to get it to happen "not the turn it comes into play", we'd make it a tap ability. So yeah, that's what Elspeth basically is. "{T}: Destroy all other nonland nontoken permanents." Imagine a legendary creature with this ability. It'd be broken. Well, that's Elspeth for you.
Tezzeret the Seeker || 3UU || Legendary Planeswalker -- Tezzeret || 4 || [+1]: Untap up to two target artifacts. || [−X]: Search your library for an artifact card with converted mana cost X or less and put it onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library. || [−5]: Artifacts you control become artifact creatures with base power and toughness 5/5 until end of turn.
Here's another broken commander, Tezzeret the Seeker. It come in, and immediately uses its -X ability to tutor for whatever artifact I need and then cast it for free. It can grab anything with CMC 4 or less. Isochron Scepter? Aetherflux Reservoir? You name it. Hell, if I'm willing to wait another turn, I can grab anything with CMC 5, such as Paradox Engine. There's just too many broken combos that this thing can fetch for you. You know how good Arcum Dagsson is as a commander? Tezzeret would be far worse, because he's also immune to creature removal spells.
Sorin Markov || 3BBB || Legendary Planeswalker -- Sorin || 4 || [+2]: Sorin Markov deals 2 damage to any target and you gain 2 life. || [−3]: Target opponent’s life total becomes 10. || [−7]: You control target player during that player’s next turn.
All right, for my turn, I'm gonna bring in my commander: Sorin Markov. I'll -3 him to make your life total 10. Swing with everything, kill you? Get used to hearing that when I'm running Sorin as my commander. Now, if I'm in a multiplayer environment, of course, I can only hit one person with this and then I become the target that everyone is aiming at. But I can always copy the ability while it's on the stack (Rings of Brighthearth says hi) and target multiple opponents with it. What's more, there's no chance for the opponent to respond in between me casting Sorin and me activating his ability. If you're not playing blue and have counterspell mana up, then you're fucked. Of course, Sorin and all other planeswalkers ARE legal in Commander, they just can't be your commander. There's nothing stopping you from doing this in a real EDH game once you've drawn Sorin Markov naturally. But that's key: you have to actually dig for it. Is it broken? Sure, but no more so than any of the other broken stuff you can dig for in Commander.
Xenagos, the Reveler || 2RG || Legendary Planeswalker -- Xenagos || 3 || [+1]: Add X mana in any combination of {R} and/or {G}, where X is the number of creatures you control. || [0]: Create a 2/2 red and green Satyr creature token with haste. || [−6]: Exile the top seven cards of your library. You may put any number of creature and/or land cards from among them onto the battlefield.
So, here's my next commander: Xenagos, the Reveler. I can cast him on turn four (turn three if I can get a little mana acceleration), and then I basically have a Gaea's Cradle for the rest of the game. Sure, you can kill him, but then I can recast him. Does that sound fair to you?
Dack Fayden || 1UR || Legendary Planeswalker -- Dack || 3 || [+1]: Target player draws two cards, then discards two cards. || [−2]: Gain control of target artifact. || [−6]: You get an emblem with “Whenever you cast a spell that targets one or more permanents, gain control of those permanents.”
Nice Sol Ring. Nice Signets. Nice (whatever artifact you want). Mind if I permanently steal it from you? Thanks!
Jace, Cunning Castaway || 1UU || Legendary Planeswalker -- Jace || 3 || [+1]: Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player this turn, draw a card, then discard a card. || [−2]: Create a 2/2 blue Illusion creature token with “When this creature becomes the target of a spell, sacrifice it.” || [−5]: Create two tokens that are copies of Jace, Cunning Castaway, except they’re not legendary.
You know how I've proven planeswalkers to be broken? Well, how about a planeswalker that can make other planeswalkers?
Now, of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. We're doing pretty broken stuff, but trust me... we can break this even further. How? Allow me to show you.
Doubling Season || 4G || Enchantment || If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead. || If an effect would put one or more counters on a permanent you control, it puts twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead.
Deepglow Skate || 4U || Creature -- Fish || 3/3 || When Deepglow Skate enters the battlefield, double the number of each kind of counter on any number of target permanents.
These guys. Doubling Season and Deepglow Skate are broken with planeswalkers, since they let you double your loyalty counters. These basically let you ultimate any planeswalker you want (well, okay, most of them) as soon as the planeswalker comes in. One broken combo that you can do in Commander is Teferi, Temporal Archmage + The Chain Veil, which lets you activate your planeswalkers' loyalty abilities twice per turn on EVERY player's turn. It's nuts. Luckily, this combo is tricky to pull off. But with Doubling Season and Deepglow Skate? There's so much worse that you can do.
For each of the below planeswalkers, imagine we have a Doubling Season in play. We're ready to ultimate our planeswalkers immediately. Feel free to ignore all text written on the cards other than the ultimate and just read how broken some of this stuff is.
Sarkhan Unbroken || 2GUR || Legendary Planeswalker -- Sarkhan || 4 || [+1]: Draw a card, then add one mana of any color. || [−2]: Create a 4/4 red Dragon creature token with flying. || [−8]: Search your library for any number of Dragon creature cards and put them onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
All right, I'll grab a Scourge of Valkas as my first Dragon, deal 1 damage to someone, grab a second Dragon, deal 2, grab a third Dragon, deal 3, and so on.
Samut the Tested || 2RG || Legendary Planeswalker -- Samut || 4 || [+1]: Up to one target creature gains double strike until end of turn. || [−2]: Samut, the Tested deals 2 damage divided as you choose among one or two targets. || [−7]: Search your library for up to two creature and/or planeswalker cards, put them onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
I can tutor for any two-card combo I want and cheat them into play without paying for them? Sweet, there's A LOT of possible game-winning combos there. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts, anyone?
Tamiyo, Field Researcher || 1GWU || Legendary Planeswalker -- Tamiyo || 4 || [+1]: Choose up to two target creatures. Until your next turn, whenever either of those creatures deals combat damage, you draw a card. || [−2]: Tap up to two target nonland permanents. They don’t untap during their controller’s next untap step. || [−7]: Draw three cards. You get an emblem with “You may cast spells from your hand without paying their mana costs.”
Oh yeah, emblems. Y'know, those things that are LITERALLY 100% no-way-to-ever-possibly-remove. That's fun. This one is stupidly broken, letting you cast spells for free. Oh, but it's no biggie, cause you'll run out of cards in hand eventually, right? Wrong. All you need to do is pack your deck full of draw spells and tutors, which you'd obviously run if you're running Tamiyo as a commander, and then you're good to go!
That's probably the most broken that you can get, and so I think I've made my point. In case I haven't, well... Ajani, Mentor of Heroes lets you gain 100 life, which is stupid if you run Aetherflux Reservoir. Sarkhan Vol lets you create five 4/4 flying tokens. Garruk, Primal Hunter lets you create a 6/6 for each land you control... yeah. I've only cited a handful of examples in this thread, but I could go on and on.
There's no way around it. Planeswalkers are broken as commanders!
This has started a lot of discussion in the Magic community about whether planeswalkers should be allowed to be your commander in the Commander format.
The Commander Rules Committee voted on this recently, and, by a unanimous decision, voted no. Indeed, it seems that the only people who actually want planeswalkers as commanders are those who haven't given it much thought at all.
So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain why planeswalker commanders would be a terrible terrible idea.
Let's start by saying this: I get the appeal of it. You need a character to represent the general leading your army. And planeswalkers would work for this. Flavorfully, it makes sense that a planeswalker can be your commander. It's also not like Commander hasn't gone through changes before. When the format first began, you could only have an Elder Dragon from Legends as your commander. This was later extended to all legendary creatures.
But the problem with planeswalkers is two-fold. One, each planeswalker (prior to War of the Spark) has three to four activated abilities that you can choose between every turn. Creatures with that many abilities are an extreme rarity. The fact is that planeswalkers have a lot more options every turn. Two, planeswalkers are immune to creature removal spells. A lot of Commander decks rely on creature removal to deal with opposing commanders. The fact that this wouldn't work would be maddening. Yeah, there are planeswalker removal spells, but far fewer of those exist.
And that's the problem with planeswalker commanders on the surface level. Let's go deeper now. We're going to imagine that we've been invited to play Commander with a playgroup that has "house ruled" that planeswalkers are legal commanders. We're now going to try to break the format. Spoiler alert: It isn't very hard.
Elspeth Tirel || 3WW || Legendary Planeswalker -- Elspeth || 4 || [+2]: You gain 1 life for each creature you control. || [−2]: Create three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens. || [−5]: Destroy all other permanents except for lands and tokens.
Here's my commander: Elspeth Tirel. She comes in, +2's herself up to six loyalty, and then ultimates the next turn, nuking everyone's board. How lovely. Can you remove her before this happens? Sure. But then she goes back to the command zone and threatens to do it again shortly thereafter. Destroying all nonland permanents is insane! Sure, she can't do it the turn she comes in, but she can do it the turn after. Imagine if this was a creature. If we want to get it to happen "not the turn it comes into play", we'd make it a tap ability. So yeah, that's what Elspeth basically is. "{T}: Destroy all other nonland nontoken permanents." Imagine a legendary creature with this ability. It'd be broken. Well, that's Elspeth for you.
Tezzeret the Seeker || 3UU || Legendary Planeswalker -- Tezzeret || 4 || [+1]: Untap up to two target artifacts. || [−X]: Search your library for an artifact card with converted mana cost X or less and put it onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library. || [−5]: Artifacts you control become artifact creatures with base power and toughness 5/5 until end of turn.
Here's another broken commander, Tezzeret the Seeker. It come in, and immediately uses its -X ability to tutor for whatever artifact I need and then cast it for free. It can grab anything with CMC 4 or less. Isochron Scepter? Aetherflux Reservoir? You name it. Hell, if I'm willing to wait another turn, I can grab anything with CMC 5, such as Paradox Engine. There's just too many broken combos that this thing can fetch for you. You know how good Arcum Dagsson is as a commander? Tezzeret would be far worse, because he's also immune to creature removal spells.
Sorin Markov || 3BBB || Legendary Planeswalker -- Sorin || 4 || [+2]: Sorin Markov deals 2 damage to any target and you gain 2 life. || [−3]: Target opponent’s life total becomes 10. || [−7]: You control target player during that player’s next turn.
All right, for my turn, I'm gonna bring in my commander: Sorin Markov. I'll -3 him to make your life total 10. Swing with everything, kill you? Get used to hearing that when I'm running Sorin as my commander. Now, if I'm in a multiplayer environment, of course, I can only hit one person with this and then I become the target that everyone is aiming at. But I can always copy the ability while it's on the stack (Rings of Brighthearth says hi) and target multiple opponents with it. What's more, there's no chance for the opponent to respond in between me casting Sorin and me activating his ability. If you're not playing blue and have counterspell mana up, then you're fucked. Of course, Sorin and all other planeswalkers ARE legal in Commander, they just can't be your commander. There's nothing stopping you from doing this in a real EDH game once you've drawn Sorin Markov naturally. But that's key: you have to actually dig for it. Is it broken? Sure, but no more so than any of the other broken stuff you can dig for in Commander.
Xenagos, the Reveler || 2RG || Legendary Planeswalker -- Xenagos || 3 || [+1]: Add X mana in any combination of {R} and/or {G}, where X is the number of creatures you control. || [0]: Create a 2/2 red and green Satyr creature token with haste. || [−6]: Exile the top seven cards of your library. You may put any number of creature and/or land cards from among them onto the battlefield.
So, here's my next commander: Xenagos, the Reveler. I can cast him on turn four (turn three if I can get a little mana acceleration), and then I basically have a Gaea's Cradle for the rest of the game. Sure, you can kill him, but then I can recast him. Does that sound fair to you?
Dack Fayden || 1UR || Legendary Planeswalker -- Dack || 3 || [+1]: Target player draws two cards, then discards two cards. || [−2]: Gain control of target artifact. || [−6]: You get an emblem with “Whenever you cast a spell that targets one or more permanents, gain control of those permanents.”
Nice Sol Ring. Nice Signets. Nice (whatever artifact you want). Mind if I permanently steal it from you? Thanks!
Jace, Cunning Castaway || 1UU || Legendary Planeswalker -- Jace || 3 || [+1]: Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player this turn, draw a card, then discard a card. || [−2]: Create a 2/2 blue Illusion creature token with “When this creature becomes the target of a spell, sacrifice it.” || [−5]: Create two tokens that are copies of Jace, Cunning Castaway, except they’re not legendary.
You know how I've proven planeswalkers to be broken? Well, how about a planeswalker that can make other planeswalkers?
Now, of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. We're doing pretty broken stuff, but trust me... we can break this even further. How? Allow me to show you.
Doubling Season || 4G || Enchantment || If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead. || If an effect would put one or more counters on a permanent you control, it puts twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead.
Deepglow Skate || 4U || Creature -- Fish || 3/3 || When Deepglow Skate enters the battlefield, double the number of each kind of counter on any number of target permanents.
These guys. Doubling Season and Deepglow Skate are broken with planeswalkers, since they let you double your loyalty counters. These basically let you ultimate any planeswalker you want (well, okay, most of them) as soon as the planeswalker comes in. One broken combo that you can do in Commander is Teferi, Temporal Archmage + The Chain Veil, which lets you activate your planeswalkers' loyalty abilities twice per turn on EVERY player's turn. It's nuts. Luckily, this combo is tricky to pull off. But with Doubling Season and Deepglow Skate? There's so much worse that you can do.
For each of the below planeswalkers, imagine we have a Doubling Season in play. We're ready to ultimate our planeswalkers immediately. Feel free to ignore all text written on the cards other than the ultimate and just read how broken some of this stuff is.
Sarkhan Unbroken || 2GUR || Legendary Planeswalker -- Sarkhan || 4 || [+1]: Draw a card, then add one mana of any color. || [−2]: Create a 4/4 red Dragon creature token with flying. || [−8]: Search your library for any number of Dragon creature cards and put them onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
All right, I'll grab a Scourge of Valkas as my first Dragon, deal 1 damage to someone, grab a second Dragon, deal 2, grab a third Dragon, deal 3, and so on.
Samut the Tested || 2RG || Legendary Planeswalker -- Samut || 4 || [+1]: Up to one target creature gains double strike until end of turn. || [−2]: Samut, the Tested deals 2 damage divided as you choose among one or two targets. || [−7]: Search your library for up to two creature and/or planeswalker cards, put them onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
I can tutor for any two-card combo I want and cheat them into play without paying for them? Sweet, there's A LOT of possible game-winning combos there. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts, anyone?
Tamiyo, Field Researcher || 1GWU || Legendary Planeswalker -- Tamiyo || 4 || [+1]: Choose up to two target creatures. Until your next turn, whenever either of those creatures deals combat damage, you draw a card. || [−2]: Tap up to two target nonland permanents. They don’t untap during their controller’s next untap step. || [−7]: Draw three cards. You get an emblem with “You may cast spells from your hand without paying their mana costs.”
Oh yeah, emblems. Y'know, those things that are LITERALLY 100% no-way-to-ever-possibly-remove. That's fun. This one is stupidly broken, letting you cast spells for free. Oh, but it's no biggie, cause you'll run out of cards in hand eventually, right? Wrong. All you need to do is pack your deck full of draw spells and tutors, which you'd obviously run if you're running Tamiyo as a commander, and then you're good to go!
That's probably the most broken that you can get, and so I think I've made my point. In case I haven't, well... Ajani, Mentor of Heroes lets you gain 100 life, which is stupid if you run Aetherflux Reservoir. Sarkhan Vol lets you create five 4/4 flying tokens. Garruk, Primal Hunter lets you create a 6/6 for each land you control... yeah. I've only cited a handful of examples in this thread, but I could go on and on.
There's no way around it. Planeswalkers are broken as commanders!