I have looked through all the planeswalkers to be sure. Other than the ones that say "can be your Commander" and Garruk Relentless which has a condition for transforming, in general planeswalkers only have loyalty abilities. I am wondering why this is. There is nothing in the rules preventing them from designing a planeswalker with an ETB effect (for example, they could design a Sorin that makes a Vampire token when he enters the battlefield, and then have one ability give Vampires +2/+2 until end of turn, and another ability that gives a benefit for sacrificing a creature, so that there is a lot of strategy that plays into the ETB effect), or a static ability (like a Gideon that gives all soldiers you control +1/+1). Is the reason that the text would be too crowded? They have made the font smaller in the past for cards that require it, particularly with rares or mythics. Seems like there is a whole world of design space here.
Planeswalkers are already very powerful with their repeatable and essentially "free" activated abilities. Many planeswalkers simulate static abilities through emblems already, and ETB triggers are basically the same as activating a loyalty ability right away, which aside from some niche exceptions can be done without interference from the opponent. While it's entirely possible to do the same thing in different ways, and Wizards has done so in the past, it's much cleaner design to have planeswalkers do all their things through loyalty abilities, and it makes it harder to abuse planeswalkers due to the inherrent limit on the use of loyalty abilities. Basically, if you can get the desired effect for a planeswalker with a loyaly ability, it should be a loyalty ability. Nonloyalty abilities circumvent the inherrent limit on planeswalker abilities of once per turn, so you have to be very careful to not create a seemingly innocent yet utterly broken card.
Some things that I could see right now would be detrimental triggers for when a loyalty ability is activated to justify making that ability more powerful. Or triggers that trigger on placement or removal of loyalty counters. Or death triggers for planeswalkers. Adding such abilities would also very likely make it nessessary to reduce the number of loyalty abilities on the planeswalker to two, simply for space. You can only make the font this small before it becomes unreadable and you also have to account for longer texts in other languages. So yes, there is some open design space here, but Wizards has to very careful when exploring it.
Planeswalkers are already very powerful with their repeatable and essentially "free" activated abilities. Many planeswalkers simulate static abilities through emblems already, and ETB triggers are basically the same as activating a loyalty ability right away, which aside from some niche exceptions can be done without interference from the opponent. While it's entirely possible to do the same thing in different ways, and Wizards has done so in the past, it's much cleaner design to have planeswalkers do all their things through loyalty abilities, and it makes it harder to abuse planeswalkers due to the inherrent limit on the use of loyalty abilities. Basically, if you can get the desired effect for a planeswalker with a loyaly ability, it should be a loyalty ability. Nonloyalty abilities circumvent the inherrent limit on planeswalker abilities of once per turn, so you have to be very careful to not create a seemingly innocent yet utterly broken card.
Some things that I could see right now would be detrimental triggers for when a loyalty ability is activated to justify making that ability more powerful. Or triggers that trigger on placement or removal of loyalty counters. Or death triggers for planeswalkers. Adding such abilities would also very likely make it nessessary to reduce the number of loyalty abilities on the planeswalker to two, simply for space. You can only make the font this small before it becomes unreadable and you also have to account for longer texts in other languages. So yes, there is some open design space here, but Wizards has to very careful when exploring it.
I think things like built-in cost reduction/alteration and flash are also things that would require additional text if they wanted to put these on a walker.
Probably they also don't want to make a planeswalker where the players are like "this could have been a CARDTYPE, what a trash mythic this is as a planeswalker" and/or to avoid blurring the lines between card types more than they have.
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Probably they also don't want to make a planeswalker where the players are like "this could have been a CARDTYPE, what a trash mythic this is as a planeswalker" and/or to avoid blurring the lines between card types more than they have.
I mean, the only "blurring" that seems like a major issue to me are with enchantments, since they don't have anything mechanically unique about them other than the fact that they usually don't tap to activate their abilities.
Enchantments are effects that linger around , rather than instant/sorcery spells that are 1-shot effects.
Enchantments are player enhancements, or in case of curses some form of disadvantage.
That works quite well.
Planeswalkers are similiar, as they provide multiple ongoing effects turn after turn.
A lot of planeswalkers could very well be enchantments if all that matters is the +1 ability for example it would be an easy transition.
Planeswalkers are "balanced" around the fact they use 1 ability per turn.
If you add a Enters the battlefield trigger they get more and that has to have a reason why you use it (as flavor is a big thing for planeswalkers).
Planeswalkers are in the end just collections of abilities that somehow fit into a character for the story. So naturally the possibilities are quite endless to explore, as you could put pretty much any enchantment on a planeswalker as an "emblem" effect , any sorcery as a loyality ability and create almost any token that a creature would be.
Planeswalkers are pretty much just players themselves and play a small collection of cards that are represented via loyality abilities.
Some things that I could see right now would be detrimental triggers for when a loyalty ability is activated to justify making that ability more powerful. Or triggers that trigger on placement or removal of loyalty counters. Or death triggers for planeswalkers. Adding such abilities would also very likely make it nessessary to reduce the number of loyalty abilities on the planeswalker to two, simply for space. You can only make the font this small before it becomes unreadable and you also have to account for longer texts in other languages. So yes, there is some open design space here, but Wizards has to very careful when exploring it.
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I think things like built-in cost reduction/alteration and flash are also things that would require additional text if they wanted to put these on a walker.
Art is life itself.
I mean, the only "blurring" that seems like a major issue to me are with enchantments, since they don't have anything mechanically unique about them other than the fact that they usually don't tap to activate their abilities.
Enchantments are player enhancements, or in case of curses some form of disadvantage.
That works quite well.
Planeswalkers are similiar, as they provide multiple ongoing effects turn after turn.
A lot of planeswalkers could very well be enchantments if all that matters is the +1 ability for example it would be an easy transition.
Planeswalkers are "balanced" around the fact they use 1 ability per turn.
If you add a Enters the battlefield trigger they get more and that has to have a reason why you use it (as flavor is a big thing for planeswalkers).
Planeswalkers are in the end just collections of abilities that somehow fit into a character for the story. So naturally the possibilities are quite endless to explore, as you could put pretty much any enchantment on a planeswalker as an "emblem" effect , any sorcery as a loyality ability and create almost any token that a creature would be.
Planeswalkers are pretty much just players themselves and play a small collection of cards that are represented via loyality abilities.
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