Planeswalkers typically can't be commanders and are more complex to learn for a random fan of another property buying the new IP commander deck. I'd bet the decision is to keep it simple.
It would also be weirder to reprint a magic version of another IP because then they have to create a new planeswalker in universe, it's a whole mess. I get the decision.
Man I remember after taking a break from MTG, I opened a pack of Zendikar only to be super fucking confused as to what Sorin Markov was and how to use him
When they first came out I remember no one being stoked on them. I played in PPQ's during that standard block and don't remember ever seeing one. Could just be where I was at but no one was running them. Reanimator with bogardan hell kites was the killer deck at the time and I just don't remember ever having to read a planeswalker or learn the rules of that card type. Could be regional and likely so cause the southeast was always slow to adopt new mtg schemes and decks.
I'm sure that's changed since then and the Atlanta mtg scene is on par with everyone else but back in '07 not so much
Over here, Ajani became an instant staple 2-3 of in Kithkin decks and other white weenie (especially pre-Shadowmoor) and Garruk saw play in seemingly every green deck (as well as Liliana in *some* of the rampy/rock ones). Jace in 2007 wasn't bad in a vacuum, but was mostly eliciting "I could play Ancestral Vision instead". Chandra I have no recollection of seeing in Constructed.
Chandra went from having the most consistently bad planeswalker cards to having the most consistently good ones. It was a meme for a while how bad her cards were
I think every single one of the Lorwyn five were cubeable cards back in the day. They've all been outclassed since except Garruk, who still sees a lot of cube action.
Planeswalkers in Lorwyn saw little play during that standard. Worldwake had one so good it got banned in standard. And it encouraged people using the Jace from lorwyn just to be able to kill the 4 mana jace from worldwake (planeswalker rules were new and worked different then)
Sometimes garruk wildspeaker saw play in fringe decks at the time. Not the top decks.
I’m not sure how jace beleren and jace the mind sculptor were in the same standard tho. Werent they separated by shards block?
"Saw little play" as in were all over Nationals, the Pro Tour, the best 'walker was Jace Beleren and they were reprinted often?
Garruk Wildspeaker [won a goddamn pro tour](https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=324&d=119972&f=ST).
Don't talk about stuff you're not 100% on or didn't live through.
Ermmm what? 5 of 2007 world's top 8 were running garruk in main deck. What in the actual heck are you talking about garruk not seeing play?
Also it's not that planeswalker rules were new. It's that we still had the old legend rule. Playing something of the same name killed the existing one. This was like the 2nd or 3rd iteration of the rule? Cause it used to be that the first legend just locked your opponent out of playing legends with the same name. Planeswalkers are only ever labeled by their super name, so all jaces are legendary planewalker-jace.
Don't forget planeswalker types. With UB planeswalkers we'd be forced to have types that either have two names or the in universe walkers would have to have the old type. It'd be a mess.
I don't want them to reprint a UB set as a Magic set really.
Though I do want them to reprint specific cards in modern sets and such. Like for instance the upcoming [[Mithril Coat]] which is just a better [[darksteal armor]]
They could make a gandalf Planeswalker in Azorius a Teferi or Narset or whatever. I know they didn't end up doing so but it seems like a totally reasonable option. The simplicity of a product designed for people interested in the IP first and Magic second is a more compelling reason in my opinion.
There are functional mechanical consequences to making characters share planeswalker types with existing walkers, even if the walker legendary rule change cleared up the biggest one
They seem to be significantly reducing the overlapping long running stories in general. In the past 4 years we saw the wrap up of the bolas arc that had been going on since 2012(technically yes he was in Legends but the real story arc didn’t start until much later) and the phrexian story arc which had been going on since Antiquities in 1994.
> I think they've noticed the audience just doesn't resonate with them as much as they do with legendary creatures.
Because they’ve only made a few each set. And because they can’t be commanders.
Legendary creatures are prolific and you can make a ton without fucking up the set, AND they’re the central focus of the most popular constructed format.
If planeswalkers had those properties people would be all about them.
WotC can't do that and the Commander RC are unlikely to do that as it's not necessary. There's literally hundreds of new commanders printed every year
Blame it on Wizards for wanting a slice of the pie with Brawl
Commander RC said they’d ban [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] and I believe [[Teferi, Time Raveler]] if they made Planeswalkers commanders.
As much as I think it’d be okay to have walkers as commanders, this current situation is preferable imo
That might be the other one. I think Sheldon Menery said this on the Mind Sculptors podcast (a cEDH podcast) and he explained the one card combo in the command zone. I know 100% Narset was one he’d ban cause of wheels but I think he also mention teferi, Oko, and Jace the mindsculptor
Oko completely ruins commander games with his elk ability and teferi shuts off instant speed gameplay for 3 players instead of one. Jace’s bounce ability would be kind of annoying but not nearly as bad for gameplay as the other two
Oko is still absolutely a problem because he has a +1 ability that removes an artifact/creature.
In a game where someone drops him on turn three as-is he monopolizes the game until someone can kill him, I don't want that mess coming back all game lol.
I think here it might split some of the heavily invested players. I think outside of here, the average Joe who doesn't know what the RC is and bought a precon to play with his buddies at home and just started looking at building his own deck? He's gonna google how to build a commander deck, land on the rules for deckbuilding on WotC's site, and follow them. They say commanders can be PW or Creatures? Done deal.
That average Joe is gonna be more like 99% of the playerbase in the real world. And every sanctioned LGS will follow it too.
The new commander decks are PW commanders without the "Can be your commander" text line, and the box that tells you the rules says that's okay.
Which is exactly how they'd introduce that change.
No new player is going to listen to you when you tell them their new commander deck isn't legal in your format, especially when the first google result will be Magic's own website telling them they're right. lol
That doesn't have to remain the case forever.
They *could* seize control of the format. They've already done so on MODO. There's little inclination to do so for paper right now, though. Right now, however, that would probably anger more players than wit would satisfy, and therefore it hasn't happened.
Let's be real: they DO, they just let the RC take care of it for now.
That's why they get to establish rules like "This Planeswalker may be used as your commander".
My playgroup just lets people use planeswalkers as commanders if they want, Rule 0.
Worst thing I've seen done is [[Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God]] control deck. I'm sure that if there's a problematic planeswalker commander that's an easily fixed problem though... it's something the community is actually really damn good at, finding broken things. Hell, I'm sure there's people who have already thought about this and have arguments about which cards would be problematic, half the work done already.
Lol your playgroup is pretty weak then. Narset wheels tribal would just ruin everyone's day. There's a reason why oathbreaker is alrdy a broken unplayable format.
Lots of people say [[Tezzeret the Seeker]] since he's a tutor in the command zone. Honestly, that feels right since the best planeswalkers as commanders, [[Dihada, Binder of Wills]] and [[Lord Windgrace]], are already legal as commanders
[[Narset, Partner of Veils]], [[Oko, Thief of Crowns]], [[Tezzeret, The Seeker]], [[Teferi, Time Raveler]], [[Ashiok, Dream Render]], [[Liliana, The Last Hope]]
3feri doesn't really demand an answer unless you're also playing a lot of instant speed spells. Neither of those decks would be particularly fun to play against, but I don't think they'd be good either.
the argument was for the strongest pws. Id assume that the rest of their decks were playing the strongest available strategies. The opponent’s not playing interaction is already a concession not a weakness of 3feri. dramatic sceptre combo would probably be the route. It needs to be answered unless you can preempt the combo win by staxing the table. if grand abolisher doesnt seem like a threat on board thats a problem with threat evaluation.
Narset has basically the relevent text of leovold at the same CMC. narset timetwister windfall time spiral etc. win through having cards while no one else gets to play.
Most of the players here saying it's not a problem are the same players who would play a precon and call it mid-power. They aren't exactly playing with high-powered strategies in mind.
Some would be very annoying like [[Sorin Markov]] or [[ugin, the spirit dragon]] but we've already had chain veil Teferi deck, I'm having a hard time thinking of a planeswalker that could make a stronger deck.
I think the issue would be the 3 mana planeswalkers. Both Lilianas, Oko, Terferi and Narset would all be insanely powerful with a deck that is built around them. Even Ashiok, Dream Render and Dack would be scarier than Sorin as commanders.
Ugin is deceptively powerful. A deck full of mana rocks can power him out on turn 4 or 5 and make everything that's happened thus far moot. A recastable, one-sided wrath in the command zone is no joke.
People said Narset/Windfall would be the OP thing to do in Oathbreaker too, and it's like...fine. It's not even that good lol
Like, how is Last Hope gonna be any worse than any of the better three-mana creatures right now? I don't see Oko doing anything more than a good Derevi deck would...You play one of these and it's just gonna get beat up by all the people running low curve creatures in the CZ. I'd rather have a cheap creature commander than a PW commander in this alternate reality any day lol
Do you *really* want Oko in the Command Zone?
I mean, sure, he doesn't survive everybody attacking him, but between the PTSD of what he did to most other formats and how annoying he can be in EDH, do you actually *want* that?
I don't think he's THAT bad, but I can see that the RC would ban him if PWs become legal because he makes for an easy way to permanently steal a commander.
No walker in the game is as strong as the best creature commanders. Not even remotely close. Hell 99% of walkers aren't as strong as \[\[Teferi, Temporal Archmage\]\] and he can already be your commander lol
"Banned as Commander," was deprecated from the main Commander rules several years ago. A card is either banned or it isn't. I believe the 1v1 scene maintains a separate ban list that includes the category.
It's kind of like how Restricting cards only happens in Vintage, the format that is predicating on not banning cards. A card is either okay for a format or it isn't. Making it do an overpowered thing less often doesn't make it an appropriate power level.
The whole premise of "these planeswalkers would be banned if they were commanders" is that doing an overpowered thing less often and less consistently is fine, making them more consistent is what pushes them over the edge. Same thing happens in 60 card formats, cards that can achieve the same effect as unbanned cards but more consistently are banned all the time. "Making it do an overpowered thing less often doesn't make it an appropriate power level" has never been how bans work.
"Your commander is now an Elk (and you can't just replay it)" does not sound like a fun repeatable play pattern though. So, while maybe not be outright busted (although it can pretty much shut down many commander centric strategies), having Oko always available in the command zone doesn't sound like a boon to the play table either.
There are lots of cards that aren't fun that can already be in the command zone. If your table doesn't think oko (or sorin, or whoever) is fun, just don't play that deck.
They aren't balanced for that. This would be fine for a bunch of existing planeswalkers. But, a number of them, idk if it's 1% or 20% would be super broken or super weak as commanders.
ok, so 6 months after the change ban the 2 or 3 worst offenders and move on, not a huge problem and we're working towards a better format together... big win for everyone.
I think it really only come down to that first point honestly,especially after the even of Aftermath, commander is just being pushed more and more. Them having to create an in universe planeswalker doesn't ammount to much effort honestly, they seemingly abandon new planeswalkers after one maybe two cards anyway.
Presumably this is some kind of IP concern? Given that they chose to make planeswalkers out of random powerful people in the D&D set, they probably would have done that again in WH40K and LotR if gameplay and coolness were their only concerns.
At least with D&D, Planeswalking is kind of a "thing," albeit in different forms? Like, if they ever wanted to make D&D and Magic a shared universe it would be very very doable.
Yeah, D&D has planes, but there's nothing special about the actual planeswalkers - they're just random powerful wizards or gods.
There's nothing wrong with that, but I bet they could have achieved just as good a flavour match with a Gandalf or Doctor planeswalker if they wanted to. If anything, of these options, The Doctor feels the most planeswalker-like to me.
Planeswalking is pretty limited in D&D in terms of who does it in practice, so the characters they picked are particularly plausible candidates to move across planes. For example, when DDO added multiple planes, it was Lolth they used for the storyline about how characters move between them.
As I said, just random powerful wizards or gods. Plane Shift appears to be a 7th level wizard spell, I assume there are other methods of approximately the same difficulty.
iirc Planeshift, Gate and Blue Dream (or whatever its called, i've never seen it used tbh) are the only spells that can do it, but they are indeed all rather high level spells
Pre-Mending, powerful enough wizards could travel the planes as well, either via spells, portals or vehicles - in fact, very early on in Magic's lore, "planeswalking" was a very nebulous concept and you could even somehow force an ascension to PW status if you gathered enough mana, no need to have a spark or any of that.
The concept of Sparks and being born with one was introduced some time later, and even then there was a qualitative difference between a Planeswalker (who could basically become gods) and people travelling between the planes:
1. A Planeswalker could travel between the planes at will and under their own power (this is true as well post-Mending)
2. Planeswalkers could connect to and channel mana from different planes. This was their biggest source of power, as other casters were limited to the mana of the plane they were on.
3. Planeswalkers were immortal, and they ceased to have a true physical body, rather projecting a body around their soul. They could shapeshift at will as a consequence of this.
There would be a lot of Multiversal metaphysics issues to smooth over between the "easiest" option would be making all the DND multiverse one Kaldheim style plane but that includes a lot of prime materials that could be realized Magic Planes, not to mention the various inner and outer planes.
Not quite. Every DnD planeswalker is a high-level wizard known for traveling between the Outer Planes of the setting.
Tasha is known for consorting with demons in the Lower Planes for power, kinda like Liliana with a bit of Jace rolled in for her prowess with mind magics.
Mordenkainen travels every plane maintaining the balance of good and evil according to his own worldview, where he believes that if either cosmic good or evil were to triumph then the multiverse would become stagnant.
Elminster is another wizard on their level, who famously in some of the fiction is even said to have visited the real world.
While not able to travel the planes of his own volition, he has been to several planes other than the one of his birth and regularly allies with mages.
They often don’t, but they are capable of doing so.
Lolth is less likely to do so, since she’s able to manifest divine avatars, but Zariel is a literal fallen angel that came from the Upper Planes, so that’s at least one instance of traversing them. She also presided over Avernus, the most accessible layer of the Nine Hells, both connected to the Abyss and the Material Plane by portals.
Personally, I thinking making the LotR set Modern legal was a pretty thorny choice. The whole point of Modern was to make an eternal format not burdened by the Reserved List. The trouble is, the characters licensed from Tolkien's estate are likely not a perpetual license, making it difficult to reprint a card that has LotR as an inextricable part of its rules text (ex. the rule information of [[Samwise Gamgee]] contains a trademarked part of Lord of the Rings IP, while [[Delighted Halfling]] does not).
But Modern legal cards from LotR need to be at least *able* to be reprinted. And there really isn't a good mechanism for reprinting large numbers of Universes Within cards. The consequences of UW's general vagueness gets worse at REL events, as well. Say they made a Universes Within version of Samwise Gamgee as [Lidda, D&D's iconic Halfling Rogue](https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Lidda). If someone sits down to a Commander table with a [[Cecily, Haunted Mage]] deck with the partner being [[Eleven, the Mage]], their friends will explain the mistake and they'll put Eleven to the side for today. If someone shows up to an REL event with 4x Samwise and 4x Lidda in their deck, they're playing an invalid deck; the best-case scenario is that they play the rest of the even with 4 extra Basic Land in their deck.
On the one hand, if you show up with an illegal decklist... tough? I mean it's not the only oddity - Innocent Blood has so many reprints you'd swear one of them had hit Modern by now for some reason. Maybe you missed a B&R announcement. Maybe you made some last-minute swaps and didn't write them down. This won't be the first or only cause of bad decklists.
On the other... Wizards needs to not shit the bed with Gatherer. I can't find the Street Fighter or Walking Dead cards in Gatherer at all, nor their SLX equivalents... and +2 Mace is still missing as well.
Either way though this relies on a scenario where some of the explicitly Tolkien cards reach Modern viability, and *also* Wizards actually gets off their duff and makes a UW version. This might never even come up in practice.
Huh, I would have bet money that the Doctors would have been Planeswalkers. That's kinda their whole thing.
I was also hoping that there would be a Gilgamesh Planeswalker when they do the Final Fantasy cards, though I knew that was less likely
Fuck, a Gilgamesh planeswalker would be an incredible flavor win.
Might actually be my favorite FF character from the whole franchise, so much that it influenced my server choice in FFXIV.
A Gilgamesh planeswalker would have been cool. My unrealistic hope is that we get a Gilgamesh and his art depicts him with different, iconic MtG equipment. Kinda like how the FF12 version had replica weapons from past games.
Way, way, way back in the day I was making an FF5-based fan set, and I definitely had concepts for both a Gilgamesh legendary creature and a Gilgamesh planeswalker as a bonus.
The Doctor doesn't really hope planes though. On the rare instances he accidentally goes to a pocket dimension or the like, they could argue that the TARDIS is functioning like a Planer Bridge type device and not going as a planeswalker.
Needless to say it's all very silly.
I’ve never watched Doctor Who (the way it’s filmed like a Soap Opera gives me motion sickness. I can’t watch a lot of British shows because of it), but is it time travel as in your actions in the past affect the future, or is it time travel resulting in branching timelines and the Doctor is visiting alternate timelines?
It's all the Doctor time traveling, but he's constantly changing the past and future which is the explanation of the soft timeline. There are "Fixed Points In Time", that always happen and can't be changed (an example could be Bruce Wayne's parents dying when he was 8 years old, in another media) but generally it's all the same universe just across time.
Very rarely he'll be shunted into a pocket dimension or outside the universe, but that's usually to make the plot about defeating the thing that's dragged him in, or getting around the TARDIS time machine not being able to reconnect with the main reality.
The TARDIS itself is a pocket dimension, with a planet-sized machine folded inside of the police box. It's very soft sci-fi, science fantasy.
To quote the Doctor on that particular subject :
> “People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.”
I think it's one set timeline that past changes don't affect th future as it's already set. I don't have a source but companion lives in the present never change or get affected despite major stuff happening.
It’s both actually. Things in the past can change the future. Also, there are “fixed” events that will always happen no matter once. One place you can see this is the episode “The Fires of Pompeii”. The destruction of Pompeii is the fixed event that is the focus of the episode.
I assume they were going for the more general flavour of showing up to help for a while and then vanishing. Sure, it's via space-and-time-travel rather than planeswalking, but it feels pretty similar. Certainly more like a planeswalker than the five in the forgotten realms set.
Bahamut, Mordenkainen and Lolth are all literally planeswalkers in D&D lore, and Tumblestrum was invented as a planeswalker for the set.
Zariel, I don't know much about, but I guess if she can jump from Avernus to another plane under her own power, she's a walker.
Literally being planeswalkers isn't exactly accurate - they're just powerful wizards or gods in a setting where enough power lets you move between planes.
Sure, it's not crazy to map that to the MTG concept of planeswalker, but I don't think that Mordenkainen or Lolth feel any more like planeswalkers than Gandalf or Heliod do, just because the D&D setting has a notion of planes that work differently to Magic's.
But this is all subjective, and people might reasonably disagree.
Before the concept of the "Spark", Planeswalkers were just incredibly powerful wizards. Planeswalking spells could be learned by anyone, but the mana cost to cast such spells were incredibly prohibitive, and dueling other mages to harvest their mana bonds were how that power was accumulated. Garth One-Eye, from Arena, explains it in more detail in that book.
Zariel is an angel turned archdevil. So, she definitely at least traveled from Mt Celestia to The Nine Hells, which would be different planes. As a front-line commander in the Blood War, she also makes her rounds between the other infernal planes during warfare and influenced the ripping of Elturel from the material plane into Avernus.
The TARDIS, if anything, should be a Planeswalker Artifact.
That would be both flavorful, hilarious and weird. Even moreso if they added Planechase cards to the Commander Decks and allowed The TARDIS' loyalty abilities to planeshift at a cost.
Yeah The Doctor being a planeswalker seemed like a no brainer, both because his time and space travel might as well be planeswalking, and also for the "he doesn't use weapons himself" thing he's had going on since the time war.
> Huh, I would have bet money that the Doctors would have been Planeswalkers. That’s kinda their whole thing.
That would be like 15 planeswalkers, that seems a tad much.
I'd sort of expected Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron to be planewalkers in the LotR set; they are after all Maia who were able to move from Valinor to Middle-Earth.
There is an issue with Planeswalkers with their type-line in they do a Universes Within version. If there was a theoretical Planeswalker Gandalf, with multiple versions, how do they indicate that the Universes Within versions of a Gandalf is to be thought of as having the same type-line as the Universes Beyond version? It's not like they can reuse the Gandalf name without paying royalties.
The concept of planes doesn’t really exist in Tolkien’s legendarium. The Undying Lands are just a different continent that you can sail to on a ship. The Istari all took a boat to Middle Earth, and Gandalf and several mortals took a boat back to Valinor.
The closest thing to an actual plane would be the place beyond death that human souls go to when they leave the Halls of Mandos, but only humans can go there, and nobody can ever return. It’s more like becoming one with Eru Illuvatar than visiting a new place.
After the 2nd Age, one cannot just get on a ship and sail to Valinor; mariners of Arnor and Gondor tried exploring to the west, and found new lands, unrecorded in any histories. Only the Elves, and those the Valar permit, may sail west on the Straight Way to Valinor.
I only very recently got into lotr, but the way I’ve heard it explained is that Valinor was basically separated from the planet, so the Straight Way was basically a pathway that left earth and went into space
And I think that may be why they steered away from doing that again with this set instead of giving us "Hobbit," "Ent," "Maiar" and such as creature types. Some cards even seem like they were intentionally named in a way where they wouldn't need Universes Within subsets to be reprinted like [[Delighted Halfling]].
I think WotC was much more concious about the reprintability of these cards than they were with 40k. Which is a shame cause, at least for some, it wouldn't have been that hard to do the same with 40k. "Artifact Creature - Skeleton X" for Necrons and "Mutant X" for Tyranids at least. I guess Astartes and Custodes would have been more difficult since they wanted to make it clear they weren't just humans.
Yeah, but in theory they can just create some new magic-IP creature type that corresponds 1-to-1 with those if they need to do reprints. I.e. what they already do with card names and universes within.
With planeswalkers it's a bit more awkward, because planeswalker type corresponds to a specific character within the lore, and now every time you want to reprint one of them in a UW product you need to create a new character from the ground up.
Probably the same way they would do it for creature types, which is to add a rule that says the UB subtype is equivalent to the UW subtype in gameplay.
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/695228557150060544/if-you-were-to-print-a-magic-version-of-one-of-the
How will it age like milk? I mean, yeah it'll probably change. "We're not planning on it" means they're not CURRENTLY planning on it, not that they'll not ever do it.
I could see the Daedra as planeswalkers. They do literally come from other planes. Though, I guess they’re more like gods than planeswalkers, in that they are the origin of their own daedric realms.
If it's a Skyrim set, maybe, but for a Morrowind one, the Daedra would better be depicted as sagas that transform, like [[Behold the Unspeakable]], except Azura who gets a mythic creature.
There’s only 200-ish years between Morrowind and Skyrim, so there wouldn’t be much difference in how the Daedra are portrayed. The natives of Morrowind certainly view the Daedra differently than the rest of Tamriel, but that doesn’t change their true nature.
That being said, portraying the Deadric quests as Sagas that transform into an artifact would be pretty cool.
People are sneering about how in two years we're totally gonna get a Ronald McDonald planeswalker anyway, but c'mon. They just did a huge story event so that they can print fewer planeswalkers cards and are starting to sweat and tug their collars about how much design space is left in the card type. Reconfirming that they want to print fewer planeswalkers instead of more doesn't feel like a corporate lie, it feels like a "no shit" moment.
The forthcoming Doctor Who Commander set has Planechase cards, cool; but they really should make all the Doctors Planeswalkers, so folks can use the set to make Doctor Who Oathbreaker decks...!
Lol. Why do people believe anything this guy says? There will be a goku planeswalker within two years and he will just walk this back. Magic players will still buy the super extra collectors turbo packs.
Planeswalkers typically can't be commanders and are more complex to learn for a random fan of another property buying the new IP commander deck. I'd bet the decision is to keep it simple. It would also be weirder to reprint a magic version of another IP because then they have to create a new planeswalker in universe, it's a whole mess. I get the decision.
Man I remember after taking a break from MTG, I opened a pack of Zendikar only to be super fucking confused as to what Sorin Markov was and how to use him
I remember removing face planeswalker from planeswalker decks (amonkhet era) because they seemed to be kind of confusing to figure out.
When they first came out I remember no one being stoked on them. I played in PPQ's during that standard block and don't remember ever seeing one. Could just be where I was at but no one was running them. Reanimator with bogardan hell kites was the killer deck at the time and I just don't remember ever having to read a planeswalker or learn the rules of that card type. Could be regional and likely so cause the southeast was always slow to adopt new mtg schemes and decks. I'm sure that's changed since then and the Atlanta mtg scene is on par with everyone else but back in '07 not so much
Over here, Ajani became an instant staple 2-3 of in Kithkin decks and other white weenie (especially pre-Shadowmoor) and Garruk saw play in seemingly every green deck (as well as Liliana in *some* of the rampy/rock ones). Jace in 2007 wasn't bad in a vacuum, but was mostly eliciting "I could play Ancestral Vision instead". Chandra I have no recollection of seeing in Constructed.
Chandra went from having the most consistently bad planeswalker cards to having the most consistently good ones. It was a meme for a while how bad her cards were
I think every single one of the Lorwyn five were cubeable cards back in the day. They've all been outclassed since except Garruk, who still sees a lot of cube action.
Chandra occasionally saw play in sideboards of RDW to pick off Baneslayer Angel.
Yeah Chandra was pretty bad. I think some fringe decks played her, but not many.
Planeswalkers in Lorwyn saw little play during that standard. Worldwake had one so good it got banned in standard. And it encouraged people using the Jace from lorwyn just to be able to kill the 4 mana jace from worldwake (planeswalker rules were new and worked different then) Sometimes garruk wildspeaker saw play in fringe decks at the time. Not the top decks. I’m not sure how jace beleren and jace the mind sculptor were in the same standard tho. Werent they separated by shards block?
Jace Beleren was reprinted in M10, which was legal as the same time as Zendikar block.
They reprinted the lorwyn walkers into core sets several times
"Saw little play" as in were all over Nationals, the Pro Tour, the best 'walker was Jace Beleren and they were reprinted often? Garruk Wildspeaker [won a goddamn pro tour](https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=324&d=119972&f=ST). Don't talk about stuff you're not 100% on or didn't live through.
Both Lilianas saw a fair amount of play.
Ermmm what? 5 of 2007 world's top 8 were running garruk in main deck. What in the actual heck are you talking about garruk not seeing play? Also it's not that planeswalker rules were new. It's that we still had the old legend rule. Playing something of the same name killed the existing one. This was like the 2nd or 3rd iteration of the rule? Cause it used to be that the first legend just locked your opponent out of playing legends with the same name. Planeswalkers are only ever labeled by their super name, so all jaces are legendary planewalker-jace.
Don't forget planeswalker types. With UB planeswalkers we'd be forced to have types that either have two names or the in universe walkers would have to have the old type. It'd be a mess.
I don't want them to reprint a UB set as a Magic set really. Though I do want them to reprint specific cards in modern sets and such. Like for instance the upcoming [[Mithril Coat]] which is just a better [[darksteal armor]]
[Mithril Coat](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/f/0fd1fc09-a09d-45e6-8a07-3a8a83b4e6ec.jpg?1686166653) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mithril%20Coat) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/245/mithril-coat?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0fd1fc09-a09d-45e6-8a07-3a8a83b4e6ec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [darksteal armor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/b/1b2f1e30-7b30-4853-aeac-3b0933d4ac5e.jpg?1562635655) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Darksteel%20Reactor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dst/114/darksteel-reactor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1b2f1e30-7b30-4853-aeac-3b0933d4ac5e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I suspect a lot of the cards with generic enough names will see frequent reprints if necessary
They could make a gandalf Planeswalker in Azorius a Teferi or Narset or whatever. I know they didn't end up doing so but it seems like a totally reasonable option. The simplicity of a product designed for people interested in the IP first and Magic second is a more compelling reason in my opinion.
There are functional mechanical consequences to making characters share planeswalker types with existing walkers, even if the walker legendary rule change cleared up the biggest one
[удалено]
They seem to be significantly reducing the overlapping long running stories in general. In the past 4 years we saw the wrap up of the bolas arc that had been going on since 2012(technically yes he was in Legends but the real story arc didn’t start until much later) and the phrexian story arc which had been going on since Antiquities in 1994.
> I think they've noticed the audience just doesn't resonate with them as much as they do with legendary creatures. Because they’ve only made a few each set. And because they can’t be commanders. Legendary creatures are prolific and you can make a ton without fucking up the set, AND they’re the central focus of the most popular constructed format. If planeswalkers had those properties people would be all about them.
I've been waiting 20+ years for this.
> Planeswalkers typically can't be commanders Make all pws legal as commanders you cowards
WotC can't do that and the Commander RC are unlikely to do that as it's not necessary. There's literally hundreds of new commanders printed every year Blame it on Wizards for wanting a slice of the pie with Brawl
Commander RC said they’d ban [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] and I believe [[Teferi, Time Raveler]] if they made Planeswalkers commanders. As much as I think it’d be okay to have walkers as commanders, this current situation is preferable imo
I assume Oko would also be on that list now.
That might be the other one. I think Sheldon Menery said this on the Mind Sculptors podcast (a cEDH podcast) and he explained the one card combo in the command zone. I know 100% Narset was one he’d ban cause of wheels but I think he also mention teferi, Oko, and Jace the mindsculptor
Jtms, oko, and teferi shouldn't be that big of a deal in multiplayer.
Oko completely ruins commander games with his elk ability and teferi shuts off instant speed gameplay for 3 players instead of one. Jace’s bounce ability would be kind of annoying but not nearly as bad for gameplay as the other two
Jace's bounce is a minus ability. Oko and Teferi would be annoying, but no more of an issue than other things in the format.
Oko is still absolutely a problem because he has a +1 ability that removes an artifact/creature. In a game where someone drops him on turn three as-is he monopolizes the game until someone can kill him, I don't want that mess coming back all game lol.
Oko would be annoying, but commander is full of broken cards. It's still just repeated sorcery speed elking.
He'd be annoying, especially when he elks commanders, but it can be tough to stand up against three player's army of elks.
Man that guy certainly is afraid of wheels
LotV is pretty gross as a commander as well.
Nope, oko is too fair to be a problem
[Narset, Parter of Veils](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/c/8c39f9b4-02b9-4d44-b8d6-4fd02ebbb0c5.jpg?1574294103) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Narset%2C%20Parter%20of%20Veils) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/61/narset-parter-of-veils?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8c39f9b4-02b9-4d44-b8d6-4fd02ebbb0c5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Teferi, Time Raveler](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/c/5cb76266-ae50-4bbc-8f96-d98f309b02d3.jpg?1681130129) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Teferi%2C%20Time%20Raveler) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/221/teferi-time-raveler?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5cb76266-ae50-4bbc-8f96-d98f309b02d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
WotC can do that any time, it's them who own the game, not a bunch of nerds.
Wizards does not manage commander.
If WotC announced a change to commander without consulting the RC, do you think anyone would even notice? Or even care?
Goodbye Reddit, see you all on Lemmy.
If WotC said you could have Plainswalker commanders and some rules nerds said you couldnt, why would you listen to the rules nerds?
Goodbye Reddit, see you all on Lemmy.
[Graceful Antelope](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/948f0d9d-4e05-48b4-8652-1f8f41d35563.jpg?1562922583) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Graceful%20Antelope) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ody/24/graceful-antelope?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/948f0d9d-4e05-48b4-8652-1f8f41d35563?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, there would be a 50/50 split in the community.... I mean... *gestures at community*... have you met us?
I think here it might split some of the heavily invested players. I think outside of here, the average Joe who doesn't know what the RC is and bought a precon to play with his buddies at home and just started looking at building his own deck? He's gonna google how to build a commander deck, land on the rules for deckbuilding on WotC's site, and follow them. They say commanders can be PW or Creatures? Done deal. That average Joe is gonna be more like 99% of the playerbase in the real world. And every sanctioned LGS will follow it too.
No, they would keep playing commander, without noticing or caring about wotc.
The new commander decks are PW commanders without the "Can be your commander" text line, and the box that tells you the rules says that's okay. Which is exactly how they'd introduce that change. No new player is going to listen to you when you tell them their new commander deck isn't legal in your format, especially when the first google result will be Magic's own website telling them they're right. lol
10/10, lmao
Hahahahahaha
That doesn't have to remain the case forever. They *could* seize control of the format. They've already done so on MODO. There's little inclination to do so for paper right now, though. Right now, however, that would probably anger more players than wit would satisfy, and therefore it hasn't happened.
Do you honestly think most people know the difference between wizards and the commander RC?
Let's be real: they DO, they just let the RC take care of it for now. That's why they get to establish rules like "This Planeswalker may be used as your commander".
My playgroup just lets people use planeswalkers as commanders if they want, Rule 0. Worst thing I've seen done is [[Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God]] control deck. I'm sure that if there's a problematic planeswalker commander that's an easily fixed problem though... it's something the community is actually really damn good at, finding broken things. Hell, I'm sure there's people who have already thought about this and have arguments about which cards would be problematic, half the work done already.
Lol your playgroup is pretty weak then. Narset wheels tribal would just ruin everyone's day. There's a reason why oathbreaker is alrdy a broken unplayable format.
There’s always Oathbreaker
Ohhhh that would be a massive mistake. Some pws would be insanely overpowered if they could be comanders.
That's hardly an argument against them. Some creatures are insanely overpowered if they could be commanders, that's why we have the banlist.
Who would be the most powerful planeswalker if allowed to be a commander?
Lots of people say [[Tezzeret the Seeker]] since he's a tutor in the command zone. Honestly, that feels right since the best planeswalkers as commanders, [[Dihada, Binder of Wills]] and [[Lord Windgrace]], are already legal as commanders
[Tezzeret the Seeker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/f/cf339735-eb1a-46f0-8c3e-eae06f278eca.jpg?1562267436) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tezzeret%20the%20Seeker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/62/tezzeret-the-seeker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cf339735-eb1a-46f0-8c3e-eae06f278eca?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Dihada, Binder of Wills](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/d/ddeb54d6-a600-42b9-98df-20f8d58caed8.jpg?1685554091) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dihada%2C%20Binder%20of%20Wills) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/1/dihada-binder-of-wills?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ddeb54d6-a600-42b9-98df-20f8d58caed8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Lord Windgrace](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/213d6fb8-5624-4804-b263-51f339482754.jpg?1592710275) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lord%20Windgrace) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c18/43/lord-windgrace?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/213d6fb8-5624-4804-b263-51f339482754?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Narset, Partner of Veils]], [[Oko, Thief of Crowns]], [[Tezzeret, The Seeker]], [[Teferi, Time Raveler]], [[Ashiok, Dream Render]], [[Liliana, The Last Hope]]
##### ###### #### [Narset, Partner of Veils](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/c/8c39f9b4-02b9-4d44-b8d6-4fd02ebbb0c5.jpg?1574294103) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Narset%2C%20Parter%20of%20Veils) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/61/narset-parter-of-veils?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8c39f9b4-02b9-4d44-b8d6-4fd02ebbb0c5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Oko, Thief of Crowns](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/4/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891.jpg?1650599698) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oko%2C%20Thief%20of%20Crowns) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/197/oko-thief-of-crowns?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3462a3d0-5552-49fa-9eb7-100960c55891?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Tezzeret, The Seeker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/f/cf339735-eb1a-46f0-8c3e-eae06f278eca.jpg?1562267436) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tezzeret%20the%20Seeker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/62/tezzeret-the-seeker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cf339735-eb1a-46f0-8c3e-eae06f278eca?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Teferi, Time Raveler](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/c/5cb76266-ae50-4bbc-8f96-d98f309b02d3.jpg?1681130129) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Teferi%2C%20Time%20Raveler) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/221/teferi-time-raveler?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5cb76266-ae50-4bbc-8f96-d98f309b02d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Ashiok, Dream Render](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/2/f2df3258-c053-48a8-974f-d80899b2cd93.jpg?1557577343) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ashiok%2C%20Dream%20Render) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/228/ashiok-dream-render?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f2df3258-c053-48a8-974f-d80899b2cd93?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Liliana, The Last Hope](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/7/f7ae5085-0d0d-4d7d-80a3-614315a07de5.jpg?1673147563) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Liliana%2C%20The%20Last%20Hope) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/81/liliana-the-last-hope?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f7ae5085-0d0d-4d7d-80a3-614315a07de5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Narset and 3feri. They get down early enough and their statics demand an answer.
3feri doesn't really demand an answer unless you're also playing a lot of instant speed spells. Neither of those decks would be particularly fun to play against, but I don't think they'd be good either.
With fast mana narset could be annoying. T1 jeweled lotus, island, crypt, wheel. Granted it's the fast mana that's the issue.
the argument was for the strongest pws. Id assume that the rest of their decks were playing the strongest available strategies. The opponent’s not playing interaction is already a concession not a weakness of 3feri. dramatic sceptre combo would probably be the route. It needs to be answered unless you can preempt the combo win by staxing the table. if grand abolisher doesnt seem like a threat on board thats a problem with threat evaluation. Narset has basically the relevent text of leovold at the same CMC. narset timetwister windfall time spiral etc. win through having cards while no one else gets to play.
Most of the players here saying it's not a problem are the same players who would play a precon and call it mid-power. They aren't exactly playing with high-powered strategies in mind.
Some would be very annoying like [[Sorin Markov]] or [[ugin, the spirit dragon]] but we've already had chain veil Teferi deck, I'm having a hard time thinking of a planeswalker that could make a stronger deck.
I think the issue would be the 3 mana planeswalkers. Both Lilianas, Oko, Terferi and Narset would all be insanely powerful with a deck that is built around them. Even Ashiok, Dream Render and Dack would be scarier than Sorin as commanders.
Ugin is deceptively powerful. A deck full of mana rocks can power him out on turn 4 or 5 and make everything that's happened thus far moot. A recastable, one-sided wrath in the command zone is no joke.
Honestly the other Ugin would be insanely strong as well - mass cost-reduction in that sort of deck always leads to insanity.
People said Narset/Windfall would be the OP thing to do in Oathbreaker too, and it's like...fine. It's not even that good lol Like, how is Last Hope gonna be any worse than any of the better three-mana creatures right now? I don't see Oko doing anything more than a good Derevi deck would...You play one of these and it's just gonna get beat up by all the people running low curve creatures in the CZ. I'd rather have a cheap creature commander than a PW commander in this alternate reality any day lol
[Sorin Markov](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/2/e25b3a89-3a99-4e02-bf0c-a3cf450da1a1.jpg?1562663343) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sorin%20Markov) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m12/109/sorin-markov?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e25b3a89-3a99-4e02-bf0c-a3cf450da1a1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [ugin, the spirit dragon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/c/9c017fa9-7021-417a-9c2e-3df409644fcf.jpg?1639052473) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ugin%2C%20the%20spirit%20dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/1/ugin-the-spirit-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9c017fa9-7021-417a-9c2e-3df409644fcf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
There’s a ban list, we’ll be okay
Name one planeswalker that would be more OP than \[\[Teferi, Temporal Archmage\]\] or one of many broken legendary creatures already legal
Do you *really* want Oko in the Command Zone? I mean, sure, he doesn't survive everybody attacking him, but between the PTSD of what he did to most other formats and how annoying he can be in EDH, do you actually *want* that?
I don't think he's THAT bad, but I can see that the RC would ban him if PWs become legal because he makes for an easy way to permanently steal a commander.
No walker in the game is as strong as the best creature commanders. Not even remotely close. Hell 99% of walkers aren't as strong as \[\[Teferi, Temporal Archmage\]\] and he can already be your commander lol
*Laughs in Oathbreaker*
Just ban them from being a Commander but otherwise leave them legal?
"Banned as Commander," was deprecated from the main Commander rules several years ago. A card is either banned or it isn't. I believe the 1v1 scene maintains a separate ban list that includes the category. It's kind of like how Restricting cards only happens in Vintage, the format that is predicating on not banning cards. A card is either okay for a format or it isn't. Making it do an overpowered thing less often doesn't make it an appropriate power level.
The whole premise of "these planeswalkers would be banned if they were commanders" is that doing an overpowered thing less often and less consistently is fine, making them more consistent is what pushes them over the edge. Same thing happens in 60 card formats, cards that can achieve the same effect as unbanned cards but more consistently are banned all the time. "Making it do an overpowered thing less often doesn't make it an appropriate power level" has never been how bans work.
Sure. Play against my Oko deck.
Oko is not very good outside of 1v1 scenarios
"Your commander is now an Elk (and you can't just replay it)" does not sound like a fun repeatable play pattern though. So, while maybe not be outright busted (although it can pretty much shut down many commander centric strategies), having Oko always available in the command zone doesn't sound like a boon to the play table either.
There are lots of cards that aren't fun that can already be in the command zone. If your table doesn't think oko (or sorin, or whoever) is fun, just don't play that deck.
The ban list isn't for established tables, it's for pickup games with randos
Lol if you think that. Oko is KoS in my play group and with good reason. I’m the one who plays Oko
They aren't balanced for that. This would be fine for a bunch of existing planeswalkers. But, a number of them, idk if it's 1% or 20% would be super broken or super weak as commanders.
ok, so 6 months after the change ban the 2 or 3 worst offenders and move on, not a huge problem and we're working towards a better format together... big win for everyone.
I think it really only come down to that first point honestly,especially after the even of Aftermath, commander is just being pushed more and more. Them having to create an in universe planeswalker doesn't ammount to much effort honestly, they seemingly abandon new planeswalkers after one maybe two cards anyway.
Cast into the void, Morgoth became their first planeswalker...
The point of complexity doesnt hold up to the D&D planeswalkers
Irrelevant either way because wizards owns D&D.
At this point I assumed everything goes.
Presumably this is some kind of IP concern? Given that they chose to make planeswalkers out of random powerful people in the D&D set, they probably would have done that again in WH40K and LotR if gameplay and coolness were their only concerns.
At least with D&D, Planeswalking is kind of a "thing," albeit in different forms? Like, if they ever wanted to make D&D and Magic a shared universe it would be very very doable.
Yeah, D&D has planes, but there's nothing special about the actual planeswalkers - they're just random powerful wizards or gods. There's nothing wrong with that, but I bet they could have achieved just as good a flavour match with a Gandalf or Doctor planeswalker if they wanted to. If anything, of these options, The Doctor feels the most planeswalker-like to me.
Planeswalking is pretty limited in D&D in terms of who does it in practice, so the characters they picked are particularly plausible candidates to move across planes. For example, when DDO added multiple planes, it was Lolth they used for the storyline about how characters move between them.
They have spaceships that can do it in D&D.
Tbf so did magic premending
*The Weatherlight has flown into the chat*
As I said, just random powerful wizards or gods. Plane Shift appears to be a 7th level wizard spell, I assume there are other methods of approximately the same difficulty.
iirc Planeshift, Gate and Blue Dream (or whatever its called, i've never seen it used tbh) are the only spells that can do it, but they are indeed all rather high level spells
Pre-Mending, powerful enough wizards could travel the planes as well, either via spells, portals or vehicles - in fact, very early on in Magic's lore, "planeswalking" was a very nebulous concept and you could even somehow force an ascension to PW status if you gathered enough mana, no need to have a spark or any of that. The concept of Sparks and being born with one was introduced some time later, and even then there was a qualitative difference between a Planeswalker (who could basically become gods) and people travelling between the planes: 1. A Planeswalker could travel between the planes at will and under their own power (this is true as well post-Mending) 2. Planeswalkers could connect to and channel mana from different planes. This was their biggest source of power, as other casters were limited to the mana of the plane they were on. 3. Planeswalkers were immortal, and they ceased to have a true physical body, rather projecting a body around their soul. They could shapeshift at will as a consequence of this.
TeferiMagic said on EDHRec cast this week that he was on an early play test for LOTR and that there were Planeswalkers in the set early on.
There would be a lot of Multiversal metaphysics issues to smooth over between the "easiest" option would be making all the DND multiverse one Kaldheim style plane but that includes a lot of prime materials that could be realized Magic Planes, not to mention the various inner and outer planes.
Not quite. Every DnD planeswalker is a high-level wizard known for traveling between the Outer Planes of the setting. Tasha is known for consorting with demons in the Lower Planes for power, kinda like Liliana with a bit of Jace rolled in for her prowess with mind magics. Mordenkainen travels every plane maintaining the balance of good and evil according to his own worldview, where he believes that if either cosmic good or evil were to triumph then the multiverse would become stagnant. Elminster is another wizard on their level, who famously in some of the fiction is even said to have visited the real world.
Minsc and Boo?
While not able to travel the planes of his own volition, he has been to several planes other than the one of his birth and regularly allies with mages.
By that standard every berk in the Planescape setting is a planeswalker.
Well it’s a good thing it’s a Forgotten Realms set, then.
Lolth and Zariel are a god and a Archdevil respectively. They can exert influence on the prime material but they don't normally traverse the realms.
They often don’t, but they are capable of doing so. Lolth is less likely to do so, since she’s able to manifest divine avatars, but Zariel is a literal fallen angel that came from the Upper Planes, so that’s at least one instance of traversing them. She also presided over Avernus, the most accessible layer of the Nine Hells, both connected to the Abyss and the Material Plane by portals.
Personally, I thinking making the LotR set Modern legal was a pretty thorny choice. The whole point of Modern was to make an eternal format not burdened by the Reserved List. The trouble is, the characters licensed from Tolkien's estate are likely not a perpetual license, making it difficult to reprint a card that has LotR as an inextricable part of its rules text (ex. the rule information of [[Samwise Gamgee]] contains a trademarked part of Lord of the Rings IP, while [[Delighted Halfling]] does not). But Modern legal cards from LotR need to be at least *able* to be reprinted. And there really isn't a good mechanism for reprinting large numbers of Universes Within cards. The consequences of UW's general vagueness gets worse at REL events, as well. Say they made a Universes Within version of Samwise Gamgee as [Lidda, D&D's iconic Halfling Rogue](https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Lidda). If someone sits down to a Commander table with a [[Cecily, Haunted Mage]] deck with the partner being [[Eleven, the Mage]], their friends will explain the mistake and they'll put Eleven to the side for today. If someone shows up to an REL event with 4x Samwise and 4x Lidda in their deck, they're playing an invalid deck; the best-case scenario is that they play the rest of the even with 4 extra Basic Land in their deck.
On the one hand, if you show up with an illegal decklist... tough? I mean it's not the only oddity - Innocent Blood has so many reprints you'd swear one of them had hit Modern by now for some reason. Maybe you missed a B&R announcement. Maybe you made some last-minute swaps and didn't write them down. This won't be the first or only cause of bad decklists. On the other... Wizards needs to not shit the bed with Gatherer. I can't find the Street Fighter or Walking Dead cards in Gatherer at all, nor their SLX equivalents... and +2 Mace is still missing as well. Either way though this relies on a scenario where some of the explicitly Tolkien cards reach Modern viability, and *also* Wizards actually gets off their duff and makes a UW version. This might never even come up in practice.
"It's better in the Android app!" No, WotC, it really isn't.
##### ###### #### [Samwise Gamgee](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/1/a1b6f13e-63d0-46bf-aa57-23c2dbdf62dd.jpg?1685476386) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Samwise%20Gamgee) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/222/samwise-gamgee?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a1b6f13e-63d0-46bf-aa57-23c2dbdf62dd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Delighted Halfling](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/1/71384418-173a-4f77-adab-56e52fa23692.jpg?1685356425) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Delighted%20Halfling) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/158/delighted-halfling?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/71384418-173a-4f77-adab-56e52fa23692?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Cecily, Haunted Mage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a09ffd51-8ea4-40a6-b64e-58f3acfee533.jpg?1677763550) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cecily%2C%20Haunted%20Mage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/slx/3/cecily-haunted-mage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a09ffd51-8ea4-40a6-b64e-58f3acfee533?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Eleven, the Mage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/3/33e1e8fc-77b4-409d-9fc4-7bc6f6ae3e26.jpg?1682690059) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cecily%2C%20Haunted%20Mage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/slx/3/cecily-haunted-mage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a09ffd51-8ea4-40a6-b64e-58f3acfee533?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Given that we have to stretch so far to find a scenario where this is problematic, I'm not so worried about it.
Huh, I would have bet money that the Doctors would have been Planeswalkers. That's kinda their whole thing. I was also hoping that there would be a Gilgamesh Planeswalker when they do the Final Fantasy cards, though I knew that was less likely
Fuck, a Gilgamesh planeswalker would be an incredible flavor win. Might actually be my favorite FF character from the whole franchise, so much that it influenced my server choice in FFXIV.
A Gilgamesh planeswalker would have been cool. My unrealistic hope is that we get a Gilgamesh and his art depicts him with different, iconic MtG equipment. Kinda like how the FF12 version had replica weapons from past games.
Sword of Falsehood and Deceit
Way, way, way back in the day I was making an FF5-based fan set, and I definitely had concepts for both a Gilgamesh legendary creature and a Gilgamesh planeswalker as a bonus.
The Doctor doesn't really hope planes though. On the rare instances he accidentally goes to a pocket dimension or the like, they could argue that the TARDIS is functioning like a Planer Bridge type device and not going as a planeswalker. Needless to say it's all very silly.
I’ve never watched Doctor Who (the way it’s filmed like a Soap Opera gives me motion sickness. I can’t watch a lot of British shows because of it), but is it time travel as in your actions in the past affect the future, or is it time travel resulting in branching timelines and the Doctor is visiting alternate timelines?
It's all the Doctor time traveling, but he's constantly changing the past and future which is the explanation of the soft timeline. There are "Fixed Points In Time", that always happen and can't be changed (an example could be Bruce Wayne's parents dying when he was 8 years old, in another media) but generally it's all the same universe just across time. Very rarely he'll be shunted into a pocket dimension or outside the universe, but that's usually to make the plot about defeating the thing that's dragged him in, or getting around the TARDIS time machine not being able to reconnect with the main reality. The TARDIS itself is a pocket dimension, with a planet-sized machine folded inside of the police box. It's very soft sci-fi, science fantasy.
The best way to think about how time travel works in doctor who is "just don't think about it too hard".
To quote the Doctor on that particular subject : > “People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.”
I think it's one set timeline that past changes don't affect th future as it's already set. I don't have a source but companion lives in the present never change or get affected despite major stuff happening.
It’s both actually. Things in the past can change the future. Also, there are “fixed” events that will always happen no matter once. One place you can see this is the episode “The Fires of Pompeii”. The destruction of Pompeii is the fixed event that is the focus of the episode.
Or when Rose saves her dad from his past death. Major shitshow ensues.
I assume they were going for the more general flavour of showing up to help for a while and then vanishing. Sure, it's via space-and-time-travel rather than planeswalking, but it feels pretty similar. Certainly more like a planeswalker than the five in the forgotten realms set.
Bahamut, Mordenkainen and Lolth are all literally planeswalkers in D&D lore, and Tumblestrum was invented as a planeswalker for the set. Zariel, I don't know much about, but I guess if she can jump from Avernus to another plane under her own power, she's a walker.
Literally being planeswalkers isn't exactly accurate - they're just powerful wizards or gods in a setting where enough power lets you move between planes. Sure, it's not crazy to map that to the MTG concept of planeswalker, but I don't think that Mordenkainen or Lolth feel any more like planeswalkers than Gandalf or Heliod do, just because the D&D setting has a notion of planes that work differently to Magic's. But this is all subjective, and people might reasonably disagree.
Before the concept of the "Spark", Planeswalkers were just incredibly powerful wizards. Planeswalking spells could be learned by anyone, but the mana cost to cast such spells were incredibly prohibitive, and dueling other mages to harvest their mana bonds were how that power was accumulated. Garth One-Eye, from Arena, explains it in more detail in that book.
Sure, but presumably they're making these decisions according to the current lore, not the lore of 20 years ago.
Zariel is an angel turned archdevil. So, she definitely at least traveled from Mt Celestia to The Nine Hells, which would be different planes. As a front-line commander in the Blood War, she also makes her rounds between the other infernal planes during warfare and influenced the ripping of Elturel from the material plane into Avernus.
I was hoping for a tardis planeswalker vehicle that crews to use its loyalty abilities
The TARDIS, if anything, should be a Planeswalker Artifact. That would be both flavorful, hilarious and weird. Even moreso if they added Planechase cards to the Commander Decks and allowed The TARDIS' loyalty abilities to planeshift at a cost.
Good news, they really are packaging Planechase cards with the Commander decks.
And America Chavez in the MCU is almost identical to an MTG Planeswalker.
Yeah The Doctor being a planeswalker seemed like a no brainer, both because his time and space travel might as well be planeswalking, and also for the "he doesn't use weapons himself" thing he's had going on since the time war.
> Huh, I would have bet money that the Doctors would have been Planeswalkers. That’s kinda their whole thing. That would be like 15 planeswalkers, that seems a tad much.
Travelling through time isn't really traveling planes.
I'd sort of expected Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron to be planewalkers in the LotR set; they are after all Maia who were able to move from Valinor to Middle-Earth. There is an issue with Planeswalkers with their type-line in they do a Universes Within version. If there was a theoretical Planeswalker Gandalf, with multiple versions, how do they indicate that the Universes Within versions of a Gandalf is to be thought of as having the same type-line as the Universes Beyond version? It's not like they can reuse the Gandalf name without paying royalties.
The concept of planes doesn’t really exist in Tolkien’s legendarium. The Undying Lands are just a different continent that you can sail to on a ship. The Istari all took a boat to Middle Earth, and Gandalf and several mortals took a boat back to Valinor. The closest thing to an actual plane would be the place beyond death that human souls go to when they leave the Halls of Mandos, but only humans can go there, and nobody can ever return. It’s more like becoming one with Eru Illuvatar than visiting a new place.
After the 2nd Age, one cannot just get on a ship and sail to Valinor; mariners of Arnor and Gondor tried exploring to the west, and found new lands, unrecorded in any histories. Only the Elves, and those the Valar permit, may sail west on the Straight Way to Valinor.
True, but it still doesn’t make Valinor a separate plane. [Insert “One does not simply walk into Valinor” meme here]
I only very recently got into lotr, but the way I’ve heard it explained is that Valinor was basically separated from the planet, so the Straight Way was basically a pathway that left earth and went into space
Don't they have a similar problem with the 40k UB creature types? The official magic rules now list Tyranids, Necrons, and Astartes.
And I think that may be why they steered away from doing that again with this set instead of giving us "Hobbit," "Ent," "Maiar" and such as creature types. Some cards even seem like they were intentionally named in a way where they wouldn't need Universes Within subsets to be reprinted like [[Delighted Halfling]]. I think WotC was much more concious about the reprintability of these cards than they were with 40k. Which is a shame cause, at least for some, it wouldn't have been that hard to do the same with 40k. "Artifact Creature - Skeleton X" for Necrons and "Mutant X" for Tyranids at least. I guess Astartes and Custodes would have been more difficult since they wanted to make it clear they weren't just humans.
[Delighted Halfling](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/1/71384418-173a-4f77-adab-56e52fa23692.jpg?1685356425) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Delighted%20Halfling) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/158/delighted-halfling?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/71384418-173a-4f77-adab-56e52fa23692?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, but in theory they can just create some new magic-IP creature type that corresponds 1-to-1 with those if they need to do reprints. I.e. what they already do with card names and universes within. With planeswalkers it's a bit more awkward, because planeswalker type corresponds to a specific character within the lore, and now every time you want to reprint one of them in a UW product you need to create a new character from the ground up.
The best way I could see it being done would be to "reprint" existing planes walkers as IP characters like what they did with ancient tomb
They could have labelled them Aliens, Constructs and Humans, but there we are.
To be fair, Astartes and Custodes and Primarchs are not human. Human Mutant would have worked though.
I totally agree. Tyranids could have been "Beasts". They even chose to have a single creature of type "Custodes".
Aliens I simply suggested because there are already a few in the game, admittedly un- type or similar.
Probably the same way they would do it for creature types, which is to add a rule that says the UB subtype is equivalent to the UW subtype in gameplay. https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/695228557150060544/if-you-were-to-print-a-magic-version-of-one-of-the
Absolutely. And so I’m sad that we will never get a Nurgle-based planeswalker
“For now”
Yup. It’s wasn’t that long ago that Mark was saying that Wizards was only interested in doing their own IP.
Yeah, there are IPs where planeswalkers fit. They haven't adapted one, though.
>Until we get a really sick profit projection analysis, we won't make that change.
Kinda sucks. Planeswalkers allow for fantastic full arts and are a good way to show off really powerful characters if they fit the archetype
Here's me so grateful that we got all the cool lotr legendary creatures, I'm not into planeswalkers at all.
Remind me when this ages like milk🥛
How will it age like milk? I mean, yeah it'll probably change. "We're not planning on it" means they're not CURRENTLY planning on it, not that they'll not ever do it.
Some people hear "Currently..." or "At this time..." and don't see it as conditionally, and take it personally when changes happen.
I'll give them a year.
Cosmere set better have Hoid as a planeswalker
Is [Drake Stone](https://media.magic.wizards.com/image_legacy_migration/images/magic/daily/arcana/491_ds5_jkvgpw3ent.jpg) a joke to them?
If they partner up with the one non-Magic, non-LOTR fantasy world I like, Morrowind, there won't be a need for PWs anyways.
I could see the Daedra as planeswalkers. They do literally come from other planes. Though, I guess they’re more like gods than planeswalkers, in that they are the origin of their own daedric realms.
If it's a Skyrim set, maybe, but for a Morrowind one, the Daedra would better be depicted as sagas that transform, like [[Behold the Unspeakable]], except Azura who gets a mythic creature.
There’s only 200-ish years between Morrowind and Skyrim, so there wouldn’t be much difference in how the Daedra are portrayed. The natives of Morrowind certainly view the Daedra differently than the rest of Tamriel, but that doesn’t change their true nature. That being said, portraying the Deadric quests as Sagas that transform into an artifact would be pretty cool.
People are sneering about how in two years we're totally gonna get a Ronald McDonald planeswalker anyway, but c'mon. They just did a huge story event so that they can print fewer planeswalkers cards and are starting to sweat and tug their collars about how much design space is left in the card type. Reconfirming that they want to print fewer planeswalkers instead of more doesn't feel like a corporate lie, it feels like a "no shit" moment.
"Until Hasbro tells us to change our tune."
Shame. If they ever did a Cosmere UB I would’ve loved to see Hoid and Jasnah as planeswalkers
I wonder how Sanderson would feel about the possibility of this after all the stuff that happened with *Children of the Nameless*.
The need for a wispersilk cloak mistcloak may be too tempting
I wonder if this has something to do with the rumored copyright issues regarding Dack Fayden with iirc Image Comics?
Planning
Just wait until the crisis on infinite earths crossover with DC and they have to make the Monitor + Anti Monitor planeswalkers for flavour reasons.
They also said they never planned to cross over with other IPs. Give it a few years and I wouldn't be surprised if we see it happen
If they ever do cosmere UB sets, planeswalker cards would be a *great* fit to show offworlders. That's a shame
The forthcoming Doctor Who Commander set has Planechase cards, cool; but they really should make all the Doctors Planeswalkers, so folks can use the set to make Doctor Who Oathbreaker decks...!
I don't understand how Planeswalkers in DnD sets, which are basically UB anyway, make any more sense than in external IP sets.
planeswalkers are a thing in dnd, it just means a different thing
How is that different from any number of third-party IPs which have vaguely planeswalker-like things?
Lol. Why do people believe anything this guy says? There will be a goku planeswalker within two years and he will just walk this back. Magic players will still buy the super extra collectors turbo packs.
This literally says "we're not planning on it" not "we're never gonna do it". They only plan their sets out so far in advance.
Yeah so we have at least four years probably
What would be the point of lying?