Coreset 2021 Design Review: The Planeswalkers

There will be plenty of articles reviewing the power level of M21, the ways the cards can be used in format X or Y, and ranking the top draft picks, so instead this article will analyze M21 from a design standpoint. Let's start off with the most exciting cards: the planeswalkers!

Basri Ket:

Basri Ket is a new White planeswalker from Amonkhet, filling the “White warrior”-shaped vacancy left by Gideon (RIP). White tends to be very focused on creatures on the battlefield, and when it's not, it dips into less fun territory (lots of “players can't”, which as Teferi, Time Raveler showed us, is dangerous).

Basri is a three-mana planeswalker, which as we know by now is the danger zone for walkers, but this one doesn't strike me as particularly dangerous for Standard. Both the plus and minus abilities require a battlefield presence and encourage attacking; this is a good reason for not having the “indestructible” line in the +1 last until the end of the next turn. The most likely home for this is in a Mono White aggro deck with lots of small one-drops (think Kvartek's PT deck). In such a deck, the focus of the opponent is on dealing with your creatures; while Basri can help to generate a stronger board, he won't warp the game state around his presence.

Even Basri's ultimate is eminently beatable. Just like old Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants, whose ultimate would spawn three 1/1's every turn, it's very soft to a sweeper or two followed by pressure. I imagine, however, that whereas Ajani's led to an inevitability, Basri's won't be activated until there's a wide enough board to kill in one turn.

Additionally, an important test that Basri needs to pass is to feel different from Gideon and Ajani, the other Mono White planeswalkers. Not turning into a creature automatically makes him feel different from Gideon, and the emphasis on attacking makes him feel different from Ajani, who is all about making all of his creature and planeswalker friends stronger.

Overall, Basri is the kind of planeswalker design that I like because it is not “generically good.” Basri is not an auto-include for any White deck; instead, he fills a niche, and his power is heavily contingent on something else (the board state). These two traits keep his power level in check and mean that there's little risk of Standard players getting Basri-fatigued in the same way that every other match involves a Teferi, Time Raveler.

Design Rating: B+ (slightly bland, but looks to play well, safe, and succeeds in feeling different from Gideon and Ajani).

Speaking of Teferi, I was admittedly nervous when I first heard last year that Core 21 was the “Teferi set.” The problem with Teferi is that, in the story, he is a master of time magic. In the game of Magic, time magic is usually represented by:

1.  Changing timing restrictions
2.  Repeating/eliminating game phases
3.  Removing creatures temporarily (send them into the future)
4.  Extra turns
5.  Untapping/tapping permanents

Go ahead and do a Gatherer search on subtype = Teferi and I bet you'll see lots of this stuff in Teferi's planeswalker cards.

Planeswalker design is already really hard, and Mark Rosewater has talked about how planeswalkers have some of the smallest design spaces of card types. This becomes even smaller when you make a planeswalker whose style of magic is represented by only about five things in-game. Tack on the typical “Blue planeswalkers can draw cards” ability and we're up to six, but Teferi must include at least one time magic ability in his uptick or downtick at minimum to communicate to players what he is about and make him feel like a Teferi and not a Jace.

So we've already narrowed the scope of which abilities Teferi is allowed to (indeed, must) have, and then we run into another problem. On non-Teferi Blue cards, the time magic abilities that Wizards makes the most use of are temporarily removing creatures (in the style of Unsummon, Temporal Eddy, Chronostutter, Time Ebb) and tapping/untapping permanents. Both of these abilities are fine on planeswalkers; what about changing timing restrictions, repeating/eliminating game phases, and extra turns? Extra turns is obviously of such a high power level that it would be entirely inappropriate for any planeswalker ability other than an ultimate. We saw multiple changes to timing restrictions on Teferi, Time Raveler, a card which is almost universally disliked, though a lot of that stems from the static ability.  You don't see the same hate around Vivien, Champion of the Wilds who has the creature-version of Teferi's uptick. The lesson, regardless, is that changing timing restrictions, particularly restricting your opponents' has the potential to be problematic.

The last area is playing with phases, which is something Teferi cards haven't really done yet. I actually think this would be a fun area to play with.

Teferi, Time Troll

3WU

4

+1: At the beginning of your first upkeep next turn, you get an additional upkeep step after that step.

-1: Skip your next end step.

-3: Target opponent skips their next combat phase.

-10: You get an emblem with, “At the beginning of your first beginning phase, you may choose whether to get an additional beginning phase after that phase or to skip the beginning phase. Do the same at the beginning of each of your other first phases.”

This might be mining too much of the phase-related design space for one walker, but you get an idea of how you could build a non-traditional Teferi planeswalker card that clearly communicates the idea of time magic, and plays with phases in a way that encourages a deck that builds around him, a welcome change from jamming T3feri into every deck with Blue and White cards.

All this is to say that designing fun, balanced Teferi cards is challenging because of the set of abilities that Teferi has access to. For Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, it felt like they hit a little too high on power because of the “untap two lands” clause and for Teferi, Time Raveler, they missed by a lot on the fun metric. So where does Teferi, Master of Time fall?

This Teferi includes two time-related abilities, the static and the -3, and one generic blue ability, the +1. The static grants to Teferi the same ability that the emblem of Commander 2014 Teferi, Temporal Archmage grants to all planeswalkers. This means that Teferi gets to tick up twice every turn cycle, generating absurd amounts of card selection and providing opportunities to abuse the discard (Rielle, the Everwise) or the ability to stock the graveyard (Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath). This means that when your opponent attacks him, he'll be at 6 loyalty, which is sizeable for a four-mana planeswalker. Thankfully, the +1 ability neither generates card advantage nor impacts the board, so that's a good check on his power right off the bat.

The -3, however, is more problematic. The ability to activate the -3 at instant-speed without paying mana means that threat of activation is huge. It means that Teferi's very presence on the board is enough to dissuade an opponent from casting an Embercleave, Mutating onto a creature for the trigger, tapping out for a bomb like Korvold, Baneslayer Angel, or Torbran, or planning a big turn around Mayhem Devil. It seems that Teferi will warp the game around his presence if a player wants to do something that would be foiled by Teferi's phasing ability. And, frustratingly, if the opponent does not take an action that requires Teferi to use the -3, then he still gets to +1 and loot for free. 

Overall, this Teferi seems relatively balanced in terms of power level, but my fear is that players will complain “Ugh I couldn't do [thing my deck does] because Teferi was on-board,” just like we hear with Time Raveler. Unfortunately, this risk seems to be inherent to Teferi planeswalkers due to their narrow set of flavorful abilities, some of which lend themselves to unfun play patterns.

Design Rating: B (concerns around the -3 in conjunction with the static)

On Mark Rosewater's blog, he often laments the mistake of breaking the color pie in Planar Chaos. He'll point out to a questioner that “Black doesn't get counterspells,” only for the questioner to reply, “BuT tImE sPiRaL!” The same is true of some of the older Commander products, which weren't color pie-conscious (Song of the Dryads, Desert Twister). This is the danger of breaking a rule fundamental to the game even once; players who weren't “in on the joke” of Planar Chaos will get confused and not understand what each color's identity is supposed to be.

Just like each color has a set of things it can and can't do, planeswalker characters have design space that they must operate within. Liliana's design space is essentially two-fold: reanimate creatures (making Zombie tokens is a power level-friendly way of doing that flavorfully) and fuel that reanimation (via discard and sacrifice/creature removal). Unfortunately, many players don't understand that by looking at her cards.

              

Because “necromancy” is incredibly narrow mechanically (return a creature from graveyard to the battlefield), Liliana's designers had to come up with ways to broaden her mechanical design space. Creating Zombie tokens is flavorfully reanimation, and her ability to make players discard and to kill creatures fuel her reanimation, which is often her ultimate. If you already know that Liliana is a necromancer, then it's easy to look at any one of her cards and see the necromancy in it (except for Dark Realms, of course). 

But what if you don't know that Liliana is a necromancer? If you look at Untouched by Death, you say, ah-ha! She is a zombies-matter planeswalker! Then you look at other Lilianas and see that some of them, such as Liliana of the Veil or Defiant Necromancer, don't even mention the word “zombie.” On the other hand, Death's Majesty further cements your idea of “zombies matter.” If you look at enough of them, you can probably figure out that she is a “necromancy-matters” planeswalker, of which “zombies-matter” is a subset. 

However, the presence of Dark Realms in the collection of Lilianas destroys that pattern. If you start with Dark Realms (maybe you started playing in M14, right after Return to Ravnica and before Theros, when a lot of players were getting into the game), and go from there, you see a planeswalker that cares about Black mana and swamps, who cares about discard, who makes Zombie tokens, who kills creatures, and who returns creatures from the graveyard. Some of the planeswalker cards focus heavily on just one or two of these. The closer you look, the more confusing it gets, as the original Liliana also tutors for cards!

Liliana's history has been peppered by small mistakes that lead to a confusing identity for those not “in-the-know.”

Liliana Vess – Tutoring isn't something Liliana does; this is an exception because it's her first card, and they were figuring this stuff out.

Liliana of the Veil – Technically all of this stuff is in her design space, but sacrifice should be used to fuel reanimation. This is an exception because The Chain Veil is evil and super-powered and makes her destructive, etc.

Liliana of the Dark Realms – This card was what led to Wizards deciding planeswalkers needed coherent identities; this just doesn't feel like Liliana at all, none of the abilities are in her design space.

Liliana, Defiant Necromancer – Yes!

Liliana, the Last Hope -  Getting closer to Liliana of the Veil territory here. The ultimate ability is a story-based power. The only thing that says “necromancer” is her -2, which is a pretty lackluster reanimation if it's not fueling bigger, “truer” necromancy, like a Liliana Vess-style ultimate.

Liliana, Death's Majesty – Definitely fits, but someone could certainly look at this and think “zombies tribal.”

Liliana, Untouched by Death – Again, it all fits, but it's very much “zombies tribal.”

Liliana, Dreadhorde General – And we're back to “Liliana of the Veil” territory, where they just made a really strong Black planeswalker with things that are technically in Liliana's design space, but do not fuel any kind of reanimation.

Liliana, Waker of the Dead – Yes!

It's easy to see why there's been a lot of confusion among less-entrenched players as to what exactly Liliana is supposed to do. I've seen players confused as to why the new Liliana, which is one of the most in-character versions yet, can make players discard, as it's been five years since she last did that, and it feels disconnected from the more recent emphasis on “make Zombies/sacrifice/reanimate.”

Most of the Liliana planeswalkers are in-character for her, but players experience the “blind men each touching a different part of an elephant problem.” Depending on which versions of Liliana you see, you walk away with a different impression of who she is as a character. The best way to avoid this is to ensure that, going forward, every version of Liliana includes an ability that returns creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield. That is non-negotiable; she is a necromancer, and that's what necromancers do. If you want players to know that your character brings stuff back from the dead, you need to have your character bring stuff back from the dead. (Liliana, apparently, is a half-hearted necromancer, as only 5 of her 9 incarnations actually return creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield.) I would also be inclined, given the historical confusion over what she is, to put a version of the word “necromancer” or “death” into Liliana's titles going forward to clearly communicate who she is and what she does.

“But won't that get boring?” No! Every version of Gideon had the ability to turn itself into a creature. By doing it in slightly different ways and blending it with different other abilities, it led to very different-feeling planeswalker cards. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Gideon of the Trials and Gideon Blackblade all have incredibly different play patterns; they are even at home in different archetypes! Yet all are easily recognizable as Gideon.

The newest version of Liliana is a home-run from a design perspective. The discard fuels the reanimation ultimate, the removal fuels the reanimation ultimate while also being dependent on the graveyard, and the ultimate is necromancy, which is what Liliana does.

Design Rating: A (they really nailed the design here)

First off, I'm a big fan of the design of Chandra, Heart of Fire. Her plus abilities tell you to play her in an aggro deck, her mana cost tells you to play her in an aggressive midrange deck, and her ultimate tells you to combo. But none of these signposts are shouting it so loudly that it's discordant; it just feels like you have to put in some effort to make her work. A deck like the old Standard RB Heart of Kiran/Goblin Chainwhirler/Unlicensed Disintegration build seems like a good fit. The deck often ran out of cards, so the first +1 would be strong. The second +1 is a good way to deal with errant Scroungers or finish off Rekindling Phoenix tokens. The ultimate would be a great way to grab a bunch of Disintegrations and just clear the board to blow your opponent up. If an aggressively slanted Red midrange deck exists in Standard like it did back then, I think Chandra has the potential to be quite good.

The only element of the design I'm not crazy about is the lack of pyromancy. Chandra is a pyromancer, and while instants and sorceries and impulsive draw are all in her design space, I wish the card shouted “I like burning stuff” a little bit louder. I think the easiest way to correct this would be something along the lines of adjusting her first +1 to be:

Discard your hand, then exile the top three cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may play cards exiled this way. For each card you don't play, deal 1 damage to each opponent.

If that's too strong, then it could just be the top two cards and the same thing. Or, if you want to push it more, you could exile the top two or three cards, and then deal 1 damage every time you do cast a spell that was exiled that way. Damage also could've been thrown into the ultimate, though the word count is already high, so it might not fit.

All in all, the design of the card as a “red planeswalker” is great, but I wish it emphasized that Chandra is a pyromancer a bit more. 

Design Rating: A- (great design, would've liked one more mention of damage to drive home the “Chandra likes to burn stuff” feel).

Garruk's been through some tough times, first getting cursed by The Chain Veil, then getting mind-controlled by Oko. The design space of BG Garruk is understandably distinct from Mono Green Garruk, who we haven't seen since 2013! As such, the return of Mono Green Garruk is exciting. As a reminder, these are his previous cards:

    

For the most part, everything that Garruk does is connected to creatures, especially big, Green creatures. The interesting challenge of Garruk is to not bleed the design space into Vivien's, who is also a Green planeswalker who cares about creatures.

      

Can you spot the design space difference? While the two walkers overlap slightly in that they're both interested in getting more creatures from the deck, they feel very different. That's because they have a fundamental difference: Vivien Reid is interested in interacting while Garruk Wildspeaker is interested in giving you the tools to make big creatures that hit hard. Every one of Vivien's cards has an ability that either directly or indirectly interacts with the opponent's board, and it leads to a very different feel than Garruk.

Garruk's +1 ability is a one-creature version of the ultimate of his first-ever planeswalker card, which is a beautiful way of bringing Mono Green Garruk back after so many years. His -2 is his most common ability, generating a 3/3 Beast, but it also references an ability that he picked up while he was Green/Black. Recall that Garruk, Cursed Huntsman also derived loyalty counters from the creatures that he created. The new Garruk does the same, but, appropriately for Green, grants counters based on creature count rather than with death triggers. Finally, his ultimate is close to the last monogreen version of Garruk we had before he was cursed by The Chain Veil.

These three abilities together create a Garruk that is an homage to both his original Green cards and the curse he experienced in the time since. It's a fantastic design.

Design Rating: A+ (perfectly nailed the Garruk design while having some really cool callbacks to his previous incarnations and his journey so far)

Ryan Normandin is a grinder from Boston who has lost at the Pro Tour, in GP & SCG Top 8's, and to 7-year-olds at FNM. Despite being described as "not funny" by his best friend and "the worst Magic player ever" by Twitch chat, he cheerfully decided to blend his lack of talents together to write funny articles about Magic.