The problem was that the Fate Reforged deck was almost always winning with Devastation, because the latter was just too slow and didn't have any powerful legendary creatures which would make sth more significant. The FR deck had eg. Whip of Erebos which was an instant win.
So I've bought two legendary cards (Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma and Rishkar, Peema Renegade) and a few other cards which improved the old deck. And it worked well, now it's very fun to play beasts vs demons Smile
And it was terrible. I played the refreshed beast deck and happened to find Garruk in my hand. I've casted it and it was a game over. My opponent had quite a good hand, but Garruk kept creating 3/3 beast each turn for free. My opponent was trying to fight it but had to spend mana on creatures and run out off juice fairly quickly and wasn't lucky enough to draw a "destroy planeswalker" card.
So I could throw away the Planes Walker as it was ruining the fun (we've just stopped playing and winning was like "meh, I've found a win-button")... or come up with some rules which would make it more balanced.
Here's my idea:
1. Each PW ability gives one less loyalty
2. If a PW has no other +1 ability, then it gets a new ability: (+1) tap N mana, where N is half of the cost of the PW, rounded down
3. PW has a battlefield sickness
Garruk was:
+1: Create a 3/3 green Beast creature token.
-3: Draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.
-6: Create a 6/6 green Wurm creature token for each land you control.
With new rules:
+1: Pay 2 mana.
0: Create a 3/3 green Beast creature token.
-4: Draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.
-7: Create a 6/6 green Wurm creature token for each land you control.
So now it's still powerful (no other card can unconditionally create tokens in my other decks), but can be attacked which makes it easier to deal with. Also giving it more power requires paying a cost as in literally all other magic cards.
What do you think about it?
PS.
If I could redesign this PW idea I would make the + abilities have some cost instead of giving advantage, eg. pay mana, sacrifice creature, discard a card etc... that would actually make sense...
The issue here isn't really the planeswalker itself, but rather the "metagame" in which you took steps to improve your deck against your opponent and he hasn't done the same.
Devastation was regularly losing (mainly because the power level of 2002 cards is strictly lower than those of 2015), so you got cards that strengthened it where it was lacking support for its creatures to break through.
His deck, being a clash pack, was designed to be played primarily against itself and, since it doesn't have planeswalkers, it doesn't have good options to deal with them (aside of just attacking, of course). Just looking at the list, he already has Hero's Downfall and Scuttling Doom Engine in the main deck, and could bring in Despise from the sideboard, and if he wanted to get a couple of cards like you did, he could just get a planeswalker of his own. He's also got a bunch of flyers to attack Garruk with over your non-flying creatures.
"Casual" isn't synonymous with "power level," but rather with how seriously you care about winning vs. play experience. If Garruk is making your play experience bad for you and your buddy, either just don't play him or get your buddy some new cards to mix in and change the experience.
Fair enough. Well all of these decks are our common property and when we play then we choose one or another. I wanted to improve one deck to make duels more fun and I succeeded to do so by adding new creatures.
Yeah, I totally don't care about winning so I guess it makes me "casual".
But I still don't understand why Planes Walkers (which are IMO a cool mechanics) give an advantage for [+] abilities. FFS it should be a cost, like everything else. You want to increase power of your PW then pay mana. I've recently bought the 2021 Innistrad Commander decks and feel a little sad that it's so much stronger than old decks just because it's newer, with all these counters and tokens.
That's the thing about Magic as a trading card game, just swap in different parts if the ones you have aren't working well. If you put 3-4 new cards in the one deck, find 3-4 new card that synergize well with the other and add those.
As to planeswalkers themselves, they can be strong but are far from unbeatable, especially because any deck just needs creatures to attack them with. The 5-mana Garruk you are using is strong since its + makes a creature that can block for it, but they are also paying 5 mana to get that first 3/3, which is only a value if they can get it to stick around. If the opposing deck adds something like Languish or Split the Party to clear blockers off the board, they will have a better time dealing with Garruk directly.
Alternately, just find some decklists for some other precons from Onslaught era and get the cards for them. Most of the cards from decks like that aren't super expensive and then you can have a couple of deck pairs for some different play experiences.
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I had an old (2003) deck with beasts and elves, "Devastation - Onslaught" (https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/devastation-onslaught-preconstructed-deck/)
More recently I've purchased a more modern deck, Fate Reforged/Clash pack (https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Fate_Reforged/Clash_pack).
The problem was that the Fate Reforged deck was almost always winning with Devastation, because the latter was just too slow and didn't have any powerful legendary creatures which would make sth more significant. The FR deck had eg. Whip of Erebos which was an instant win.
So I've bought two legendary cards (Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma and Rishkar, Peema Renegade) and a few other cards which improved the old deck. And it worked well, now it's very fun to play beasts vs demons Smile
However, I've also bought a planes walker to see what's about them. Garruk Wildspeaker seemed to be quite fitted to the Devastation deck. https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=519225
And it was terrible. I played the refreshed beast deck and happened to find Garruk in my hand. I've casted it and it was a game over. My opponent had quite a good hand, but Garruk kept creating 3/3 beast each turn for free. My opponent was trying to fight it but had to spend mana on creatures and run out off juice fairly quickly and wasn't lucky enough to draw a "destroy planeswalker" card.
So I could throw away the Planes Walker as it was ruining the fun (we've just stopped playing and winning was like "meh, I've found a win-button")... or come up with some rules which would make it more balanced.
Here's my idea:
1. Each PW ability gives one less loyalty
2. If a PW has no other +1 ability, then it gets a new ability: (+1) tap N mana, where N is half of the cost of the PW, rounded down
3. PW has a battlefield sickness
Garruk was:
+1: Create a 3/3 green Beast creature token.
-3: Draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.
-6: Create a 6/6 green Wurm creature token for each land you control.
With new rules:
+1: Pay 2 mana.
0: Create a 3/3 green Beast creature token.
-4: Draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.
-7: Create a 6/6 green Wurm creature token for each land you control.
So now it's still powerful (no other card can unconditionally create tokens in my other decks), but can be attacked which makes it easier to deal with. Also giving it more power requires paying a cost as in literally all other magic cards.
What do you think about it?
PS.
If I could redesign this PW idea I would make the + abilities have some cost instead of giving advantage, eg. pay mana, sacrifice creature, discard a card etc... that would actually make sense...
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StaffDevastation was regularly losing (mainly because the power level of 2002 cards is strictly lower than those of 2015), so you got cards that strengthened it where it was lacking support for its creatures to break through.
His deck, being a clash pack, was designed to be played primarily against itself and, since it doesn't have planeswalkers, it doesn't have good options to deal with them (aside of just attacking, of course). Just looking at the list, he already has Hero's Downfall and Scuttling Doom Engine in the main deck, and could bring in Despise from the sideboard, and if he wanted to get a couple of cards like you did, he could just get a planeswalker of his own. He's also got a bunch of flyers to attack Garruk with over your non-flying creatures.
"Casual" isn't synonymous with "power level," but rather with how seriously you care about winning vs. play experience. If Garruk is making your play experience bad for you and your buddy, either just don't play him or get your buddy some new cards to mix in and change the experience.
Yeah, I totally don't care about winning so I guess it makes me "casual".
But I still don't understand why Planes Walkers (which are IMO a cool mechanics) give an advantage for [+] abilities. FFS it should be a cost, like everything else. You want to increase power of your PW then pay mana. I've recently bought the 2021 Innistrad Commander decks and feel a little sad that it's so much stronger than old decks just because it's newer, with all these counters and tokens.
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StaffAs to planeswalkers themselves, they can be strong but are far from unbeatable, especially because any deck just needs creatures to attack them with. The 5-mana Garruk you are using is strong since its + makes a creature that can block for it, but they are also paying 5 mana to get that first 3/3, which is only a value if they can get it to stick around. If the opposing deck adds something like Languish or Split the Party to clear blockers off the board, they will have a better time dealing with Garruk directly.
Alternately, just find some decklists for some other precons from Onslaught era and get the cards for them. Most of the cards from decks like that aren't super expensive and then you can have a couple of deck pairs for some different play experiences.