Glowing Ranks: Planeswalkers

Welcome back to Glowing Ranks, Uncle Landdrops' silliest-and-almost-serious way of arranging cards and card types.

Today I'm serving up an order for the Magic's Masters of the Multiverse and Leading Leaders in Loyalty Counters. I've got ten on the plate, so let's get cracking.

10. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

Grixis is a color combo I don't play much, but something I like to admire when I see people playing it.

Nico B is at the forefront of most of these constructed decks, and almost always slotted into 5-color decks because it covers everything on the table with its two abilities.

Short of Karn Liberated, and the as-yet-to-be-determined new Garruk, there are few P-Dubs that can really impact a board state when you're down and get you back into it. Though more expensive, I liken these cards to Umezawa's Jitte in this way.

This is the altered work from Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas, which I like quite a bit more than the prints from Conflux and m13. They look more like a monument to Magic's most evil than a portrait of the living thing. And this art, well, it looks like he had it commissioned to put up in his living room, you know, where he reads all the books (See original Nicol Bolas).

9. Elspeth, Sun's Champion

El-Speth. OoooAaahh!

Our third, hero-emerging Elspeth hardly comes out in my group anymore without an "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" allusion, because let's face it- She is the master of Karate and Friendship, for everyone. Just ask Ajani.

Though my appreciation for Knight-Errant is awesome, she's just too easy to like. With more token and Wrath power, this Elspeth has been more up my alley. I've enjoyed the times I've casted her, because in multiplayer, she's proven to keep herself alive for at least a couple turns with both abilities.

Now that the whole Theros block is over and done with, this art takes on new meaning, as we now know what the Godsend is- but how is she holding it before we know? How does she have it before he gets it?

8. Liliana of the Dark Realms

By far and away this is my favorite Liliana.

She doesn't do much like Original Vess. She isn't aggressive, like when she has the Veil. But she's hella effective.

This is one of the best printings that have happened for mono-Black in the format, and could happen. Having recurrable access to Swamps ensures that you're going to get to at least 6 Swamps for Grave Titan, and you don't have to worry about drawing lands for the next 2-3 turns.

While I'm not excited about her hair looking like a batwing, the art doesn't matter when you get to have a non-color-pie advantage.

7. Karn Liberated

If John the Revelator hadn't beaten him to the punch, Karn the Liberated would've written the book on the seven seals.

Like Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, P-Dub Karn has the power to walk into a game and help you crawl out of it, should you fall behind.

Unlike Nicol B, Karn's penchant for justice and colorless mana makes him twice as dangerous. He can go in any deck and instantly improve it, and handle all those Indestructible threats. And he does all this while gaining you life, forcing your opponents to commit damage to him, hoping that you won't start the game over again.

I like Karn. I tend to slot my copies into decks that really need the help, and happen to have a few other P-dubs hanging around. It's a fantastic card, with a pretty nifty design, and I don't like blindly throwing good cards into decks for the sake of themselves. That's foolish.

6. Garruk Wildspeaker

Much like the 3/3 Beast token Garruk Wildspeaker creates, he too, is a tale as old as time.

Being more sentimental, he's one of my favorite Planeswalkers, not only because he's simple, but also because he does everything Green needs him to do- Ramp, Make a Dude, Make Dudes Bigger. Pure elegance for a wildman.

I've picked the Duel Decks artwork because it is my first copy of Garruk, and I played the crap out of it. I still do.

Untapping two lands is often gross. Combined with Gaea's Cradle, Nykthos, and potentially Deserted Temple, you're looking at insane value.

Mostly, I prefer to cast him at 5 so I untap and Kodama's Reach. That's my favorite piece of value.

5. Chandra Ablaze

I have yet to play Pyromaster or the Firebrand, but so far Chandra Ablaze seeems to be the most playable of her various iterations.

Mostly, it's for the card draw. This is an easy advantage to get in Red, and it hurts the whole table because if they are seasoned Commander players, they have their turns planned before it rolls around back to them.

I've also used her +1 ability in conjunction with Squee, and other nonsense things I play in Red, simply because Red decks generally need spellshaping outlets to help it maintain consistency. There are just too many effects that it can't do regularly.

4. Gideon Jura

Of all the planeswalkers in all the Multiverse, Gideon Jura's design has to be one of the most innovative and underrated.

Access to all three of his abilities make him innately powerful. Add to that a plus ability to control your opponent's combat step, and you've got yourself a stew going.

He attacks, he protects himself, he controls your opponent's creatures- I'm shocked I don't see more of him at the table.

Between Gideon, Sarkhan the Mad, and Jace TMS, I think people can clearly see where Magic had to transform what it meant to be a planeswalker. Not that Sarkhan the Second was good, I just believe that they decided some of the experiments on these guys made them a little too good.

3. Tezzeret the Seeker

Unlike the other Planeswalkers with Duel Decks art, I find I like original Tezz the best because he looks like a Klingon with a robot arm, which is surprisingly more comforting than the weird, anorexic-looking alternative.

Tezzeret is #3 here because I do so many cool things with the second ability.

The most notable is a tutor for 0 to go get Seat of the Synod or Darksteel Citadel. Have you ever wanted blue ramp? Well, this is how we turn our Tezzeret into a Liliana of the Dark Realms.

Once we have the lands, he's a Garruk Wildspeaker. The more colors in the deck, the merrier. I'll play artifact lands for days.

Generally, I keep the costs of my cards lower, but with Tezz, the best strategy is to keep all your relevant artifacts less than 3 if you can, thereby "idiot-proofing" your tutor, and keeping up your Tezzeret so they have to attack into it. There is no reason to sacrifice your planeswalker, even for a Solemn Simulacrum (need I remind you Pilgrim's Eye is also a slightly better game off Tezz), if you don't have to. So don't be silly.

2. Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

The artist for this card, Eric Deschamps, really hit a home run with Tamiyo. I love the work here. Smooth, elegant, multi-dimensional, abstract- it's perfect.

Which really, matches the card. Like most planeswalkers, her ultimate is a bit of a pipe dream, but the beauty of that ultimate is that every card that goes to the graveyard and comes back to your hand will be useful.

Moving upwards, her ability to stall out creatures and use that to further the card advantage makes her incredible value.

1. Garruk, Primal Hunter

Garruk 2.0 tops my list of Planeswalkers, mostly for sentimental reasons, but also for his -3 ability. This is going to be a lot of cards in Green if you play it correctly. In most cases, I tend to draw somewhere near 7-9 cards every time I activate it, and that's just nuts, considering that Harmonize is three cards for 2GG, and that drawing an amount of cards like that in a Green deck means you're drawing more threats.

The other two abilities are weird and theme-y. I guess my one criticism of this card is that you're taking Garruk up by making tokens to go off with-- more tokens? I'm not particularly excited about that, but the card draw more than makes up for it.

Anyway, that's all I got for today. Be sure to vote on today's poll.

Pass.
-UL

Who's your favorite planeswalker?

Jace

Elspeth

Garruk

Liliana

Chandra

Other

Poll Maker

Theros Set Review: Threats

Welcome to The General Zone's Review of Theros! It's me, your ol' Grandpa Growth and I very excited to discuss the new cards from this set.

From the first day of spoiler season we were put on notice that this set was going to be a run away hit. It is dripping with succulent flavor. It breaks new mechanical ground and innovates on the mono-color-matters theme, which we haven't seen for years.

On sheer power level it is an instant competitor for G.O.A.T., including three brand new planeswalkers, five wicked cool God cards, a new cycle of dual lands, and tons of tournament quality cards sure to impact every format.

This set is a designer's dream, two scoops of popular reprints like Magma Spray and Thoughtseize, the return of a fan favorite mechanic in Scry, card cycles at every rarity, and fresh takes on Enchantment themes including previously unexplored card type combinations.

Basically, this set has it all. The best of everything about the game of Magic: the Gathering. I am bursting with excitement for this set, it is easily in my top 5 and I haven't even cracked my first pack!

Ground Rules
Let's go over the basics in case you haven't caught any of the previous set reviews. Around these parts we break it down like this:

1. This blog is about Commander. 
I will only talk about a card in the review if I expect it to have at least some Commander playability. Unless otherwise stated, the comments I make about any particular card are specifically geared toward the Commander format.

2. I will not discuss any reprints, only new cards, nor will we be talking about any of the Legendary Creatures.
It seems like that would be important stuff for a format that revolves completely around them, but fear not! check out Uncle Landdrops article where he will be talking about each of the new potential commanders in greater detail.

3. The articles will be broken down into categories not by card color or type, but by what role they play in decks. 
Threats, Answers, and Utility/Mana cards each get their own article. Because I want to give each new card a chance in the spotlight these articles can sometimes get pretty lengthy so bear with me.

Threats
Threat cards are what you use to kill your opponent or to put pressure on their resources. They are often the creatures and planeswalkers of the set, but occasionally take other forms like Reanimate effects or even some disruption. Some combo pieces fall into this category while others do not, but the explanation of why is obviously important. Without further preamble let's check out some cards!

Since I am just going to gloss over Celestial Archon, the new Elspeth is the first card on the block. This lady isn't messing around. A CMC of six isn't really a draw back in Commander. If this turns out to be a bust in Standard I would be happy; that will keep the price tag at a reasonable level.

This card is very scary in Commander. It just generates a ton of value every turn. Its tough to see this making less than six tokens on average and that is a lot of free creatures for a card that can also act as one-sided Wrath. The ultimate? Maybe not ultimate. Maybe...penultimate. Who cares?

There are plenty of token based strategies in the format and this card fits right into several popular decks. Ghave, Rhys, even fringe junk decks like Doran or Sen Triplets can use another planeswalker. Having a huge and immediate impact on the board is a surefire way to score points with me.

I am digging the new art as well. Elspeth now with a spear...lance? Maybe even a double bladed sword. Whatever. It looks sick. Eric Deschamps still making solid works that give the game a beautiful face. I really like the background landscape. It looks like it is calling back to the Unglued Island artwork, which you can see here: B00M! Maybe a sweet crossover in order with Chickens and Donkeys and all mana of silliness.

There are plenty of cards like this already available in the format that don't see a whole lot of play. The new legend rules affect Commander in a very interesting way.

Previously, Blue could use Clone effects as spot removal for Legends, which made them very powerful and very versatile. Now they are less appealing as a whole, but some of them are worth playing.

I don't know if this one has what it takes to make it, but I am not going to call it early. Heroic presents interesting challenges for deck building. I think this is one of the worst Heroic cards in the set simply because it does still suffer substantially if they have removal in response to the trigger, but once you get this into the shape of a Hexproof guy then you are pretty much in business.

This card has been given the juice. For four mana you get at least four power and one of those bodies has a relevant protection ability. If you have something like Future Sight or Mind Over Matter chilling on the board then this guy provides an entire army for a bargain price. Blue token cards are somewhat rare and they are rarely this good. This is an offensive powerhouse that is sure to get in some surprise beats.

Unfortunately, this card has a huge vulnerability to spot removal and can't trade profitably because the tokens won't stick around, but this card should still see plenty of play in Aggro-Control decks like Edric.

Enter Meletis Charlatan. Many of my comments about Artisan of Forms also apply here. There are plenty of other cards that have similar effects already available. This isn't exceptional among them and it isn't that strong of a card on it's own. Some upsides: it doesn't require a down payment on of cards or mana like Elite Arcanist and Echo Mage. Downsides: It doesn't allow you to take much advantage of your opponent's spells. It is still multiplayer friendly in theory, but it is just a little bit too friendly for my tastes. I think this one is better left at home, but I am sure I will see it pop up every once in a while.


UNLEASH THE KRAKEN!!! Just what I always wanted: another big silly Blue monster. Giant sea creatures figure prominently in Greek mythology and we all knew there would be several coming in this set.

I like the flavor and art on display in this card. It is a big beast, but when it goes monstrous it shuts the whole board down until they get rid of it. Without built in protection, investing eight mana is an easy way to get blown out, but in conjunction with Shroud, perhaps from a set of Greaves, this could represent a legitimate win condition.

There sure are a bunch of token producers in this set. There is a similar uncommon six drop in White as well. The advantage here is that for an extra colorless mana and the upkeep drawback, you get a 6/6 with Flying and all of the tokens it produces Fly as well.

This is the kind of card that will really only shine in EDH, and it's the perfect place for it. There are several mono Black generals that support the token sacrifice theme, such as Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder.

This plays well with Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter as well. In a generic junk deck this card won't be all that exciting, it is a pretty mediocre finisher and doesn't have any significant upside versus Grave Titan, except perhaps that it will never command a high price tag so it will get consideration in budget conscious lists.

This is an interesting card to me. On the one hand, Black has too few Buyback or Retrace cards that can even trigger the Heroic ability. On the other hand, it is an aggressive threat with the potential to clear away blockers and provide card advantage. I am skeptical that this will see mainstream play unless some absurd Heroic enablers get printed, but I am genuinely unsure about the power of the mechanic in general. It could be that I am underrating it significantly.

Power uncommon of the set. It is almost like a Black Overrun. Essentially all of your Black creatures get Haste and evasion. It reminds me of Profane Command. Every mode on that card is powerful, but the Fear mode makes for a powerful finisher. This effect just gives you so much reach late in the game. Sneaking through 5 or 6 decent size creatures is going to represent a boat load of damage.

In the M14 set review I talked about the rising power of mid-range creatures. That trend seems to have continued into Theros as well. This is a sizeable body with the promise of late game disruption. Getting a 7/8 on a board where you just wiped about a third to a half of your opponents lands is going to put you in the drivers seat.

Monstrous is a mechanic I can really get behind for use in every format. These cards have been aggressively costed to begin with and have the promise of added value later if you flood out on mana. The uncommon Gorgon that lets you pick off one of your opponents dudes when it powers up is a great example. If you are stuck on playing creatures, play these ones. They all turn into serious damage threats and often provide extra utility by attacking on a different axis once they are monstrous.

...Or they just do even more damage. This card got carried away with itself. Sometimes I am reading a card and I have no choice but to think that R&D considers me an idiot. I find my self thinking: "Yea, I get it, Red likes to do damage. This is going to be a very relevant card in Standard where a particular five power Hasty dragon already sees play.

I don't think this is quite as good as Thundermaw, but it is likely to be the chosen successor in Red based aggressive builds. Protection from White is relevant, even if Restoration Angel and Lingering Souls are rotating.

The monstrous trigger is an excellent way to punish Sphinx's Revelation, but I guess I just rather be the guy with a bunch of extra cards and a few less life most of the time. Pretty much everything I just said also applies in Commander. Don't fall into traps like this. Drawing cards is good. Mono Red is bad.

This competes somewhat favorably with cards like Cloudthresher and Stingerfling Spider. It is sure to supplant Silklash Spider in non-combo Momir Vig builds.

The fact is a giant beater is nice, but Green has plenty of options superior to this if that's what you are looking for. As part of a toolbox this has some limited uses, but the vulnerability to removal and the high blowout potential make me think that this isn't useful as an answer to Flyers.

On a separate note, Monstrous should grant Trample by default. That just seems like a given to me. Look at this thing. It shouldn't even be able to get blocked by small things at all.

Oh yeah, time to lower the boon on somebody fool. A four power Flash guy for three isn't all that bad, but not all that exciting either. An instant speed combat trick aura thing has absolutely no place in the format whatsoever. Play this at your own risk. It isn't worth getting embarrassed over.

Can't be countered. Can't be Mind Controlled. It can get Bribed though. You tell me how the flavor works. This is a reasonably efficient creature with sufficient built in protection to see some limited play. It really isn't anything that great, but there is always a market for creatures that trump counterspells. It is good early and late. I can see the value in a line like say, cast it for x equal to three, then play and equip a sword the next turn.

The real trouble with these uncounterable 'Blue hate' cards is that they aren't enough of  a threat on their own.

The counterspells will hit something eventually so they will always be good, but a creature like this has to kill very quickly or else it will just get blanked by a bigger threat or caught in a board sweep.

Free damage, usually even a good bit of it, isn't worth falling behind on cards by playing underpowered threats that can't dominate the board. Haste does give this a good shot at ending the game immediately if top decked late. An X over 10 is going to put you far enough ahead on life that basically anything makes for a reasonable follow up.

Remember that time that they printed Wight of Precinct Six and it was just a cheap Black Tarmogoyf? Well now it is back in Green and is basically always going to be a 10/10. Ghoultree does see play just for being a crazy efficient beater. Stuff like this is insane post board sweep in decks like Animar or Karador. It will always come down with some kind of discount. All the draw backs I discussed above apply here. It tanks to removal and sweepers, doesn't have trample, and can be countered or stolen. Unlike the Hydra though, this card is reliably cheap and aggressive.

This card...is not good. I know it looks good, but compare to something like Dungrove Elder or Wild Beastmistress. This isn't as big and doesn't do as much, but still costs the same. If you want a goofy beater that dies to Doomblade, you have better options. See above. Or below. Basically anywhere.

Apparently there are a lot of creatures in this set that just want to smash face and don't care about anything else. This characteristic is acceptable in one and two drops. Anything more than that and I start expecting more from my creatures. This could easily be a 4 or 5 power guy on turn 4. Which represents a lot of damage if you're into that kind of thing. I have had my fill of talking about these cards. I won't be playing them and I will be happy to play against them as much as I can. This card is about 30 power short of beating Wrath of God.
People are going to talk about whether or not this is better than Angel of Despair.

It's better. Clearly. More importantly though- who cares? That card sees an absurd amount of play and is a fan favorite. This fights Indestructible things (it's not like there are any of those in this set or anything) and generates even more value.

It still has a very reasonable cost for its impact on the board and there are just not enough of this kind of quality removal to be picking and choosing. Play both. Every time you can. Be happy about ruining your opponents board and smashing them with an incidental beater.


This card is pretty easily the worst pdub in the set. Not a big deal. It still pretty sweet and plays nicely with some popular casual themes in the format.

It doesn't do anything for the board, but it does go up to 5 loyalty immediately and should almost always be able to grab a creature after the second activation.

This also doesn't represent much of a threat so it is a bit more likely to get ignored than a more aggressive or impactful planeswalker. It is still pretty sweet to have laying around on an empty board or in a board stall and the bar for what a 3 cmc planewalker needs to do really isn't that high.

I talked about this card last weekend in my spoiler article so I won't get into too much detail about it this time around, but I do want to reiterate how scary this card is to me both in terms of its play value and what it means for design.

R&D is getting closer and closer to make a threat that literally just can't be answered. It took a long time to get Indestructible and Hexproof onto a single creature, but if in the future a creature like this ever gets uncounterability then what? Do I just pack up my fun and go home?

There are enough high quality equipments and auras that this card is just unbeatable once it gets powered up. I guess this is what I deserve for making fun of creatures all the time. Sooner or later they were going to print one that was so good I actually had to play it.

If you go for the bull's eye my friend, you're going to get the horns. I am so down for minotaur tribal. It really bothers me that the most heavily supported creature types like elves and vampires continually get support in every new set, but other flavorful fantasy creatures get hardly any at all.

This card is a little bit to expensive to be competitive, but it is still cool. A casual card that scratches a very needy itch. Hopefully this is a signal of future fun creature type lords in the future.

This is substantially worse than Eternal Witness, but you could say that about 99% of Magic cards and be completely correct. Stuff like this is always underrated. Increases in flexibility often overshadow decreases in power level or marginal const increases. This is way better than Gravedigger in your typical game of Magic and getting stuff out of the Graveyard is a key part of many Commander deck's strategy.

I am excited for the future sets in the block. There have been hints at several most named characters. These will almost certainly be most legendary creatures, but could potentially be additional God cards as well. Maybe even something like a demigod card. Maybe the demigods start as creatures and become indestructible enchantments if your devotion is high enough. That would be pretty sweet no? Other potential ideas: Cthonic gods. Jeeeeeeez.

So, the 4/4 Cyclops has Trample, but the 6/6 Giant doesn't? This card is an egregious flavor foul for me.

Partly because the flavor of an Enchantment Artifact or an Enchantment creature doesn't make any sense to begin with. If it is a magical device, it is an Artifact. It might be enchanted, but then it should have Enchantment Aura on it. Same for creatures. That is what it means to be enchanted. That is the flavor established by Aura cards.

Polis Crusher crushes cities. Pretty obvious. Why then does he destroy Enchantments? They aren't even enchantments or artifacts. Usually they are lands, actually. Ember Swallower should be named Polis Crusher. Polis Crusher should be called Aura Swallower.

I don't blame design or development. This isn't their job. The creative team, though. I want all of them retrained. They don't understand English. I hope that the localization teams in different countries make cards like this work in other languages. Also, this card isn't really worth playing.

Momir Vig decks have gotten so much better in the last two years. This is pretty insane. Not only do they get another Seedborn Muse, they get a Seedborn Muse that triggers both of Momir's abilities.

Oh, and all of your dudes have Flash. Because fairness. This is an extremely powerful card. If it had a home in more decks it would be much more scary, but the fact that really only RUG and UG can take advantage of this.

I don't see any Bant generals that were in desperate need of this, but Maelstrom Wanderer, Animar, Riku, and Momir can all make excellent use of this gem of a card. Pick up your copies now, this will figure into Commander for years to come.

This on the other hand...is very disappointing. It is way to expensive for such a narrow card and you still have to pay the mana to cast the chosen card later. Where is the value?

If you want to disrupt their hand, play Thoughtseize. If you wanted to disrupt their graveyard this would need to be an Instant or exile the whole thing.

I am seeing this as like an Instant for just UB with the same text box. Or perhaps with the same type and mana cost, but you get the chosen card from their hand and their entire graveyard and you can cast all of them for mana, or maybe just one of them for free right now as part of the spell's resolution. This is just very bad. Don't play this.

GO GO GORGON TRIBAL! Hexproof has made some very bad creatures very good. And also some pretty sweet creatures absurd, but about the former: Don't underestimate the incremental value of the Scry effect. This is a big body for the cost, provides a long term advantage, can't get hit with removal, and can trade up at any point.

I am not sure what kind of deck wants this, but it is a decent card. Sisters of Stone Death Gorgon Tribal deck. Savra, sacrifice decks. Maybe even Sek'kuar token decks.

Graveyard hate has gotten pretty spicy in the past couple of sets. It is now aggressively costed and attached to a nearly unblockable and gigantic beater.

This is an excellent tool for aggressive decks. They will almost assuredly have to kill it because they cannot block it. If you are up against a slower control deck you are almost guaranteed to have lost more creatures during the course of the game which means you're going to get a fully stocked hand of duders with which to continue the beat down. And it is a Cerberus. It guards the underworld, so you can't get things out of graveyards, but when it dies all the people can escape their eternal torment. This is good flavor. On a good card. Wowee zowee.

Phew. Finally to the end! And I saved a spicy one for last. This card looks sweet. It isn't in a very attractive color combination for Commander, but it certainly has the goods. It helps you ramp up your mana and will almost assuredly help you jump a few spots on the curve, but it also gives you a progressively larger army of Hasty beaters the longer it stays in play.

This compares favorably with many quality planeswalkers that already see plenty of play in EDH such as: Garruk Wildspeaker and Sarkhan Vol. The ultimate isn't exactly insane, but it should put you up at least a few cards, even if some of those are lands. That isn't so bad though, because you can almost always find something to do with extra mana in a game of Commander.

Just imagine if you play this and make a guy, next turn you are at 6 mana with no real investment. This card is well positioned in several formats and will command a decent price tag for the foreseeable future. Play them if you got them and hang onto them if you can. This will have a place in Commander for a while.

That brings us to the end of today's installment. If you think I left anything out make sure to share your thoughts in the comments below.  There is still plenty more Theros to talk about so tune in next time when we will be going over the Answer cards.