All you people saying, "ermagosh, teh new Ajani sux," just wait. His -2 changes everything about the way Planeswalkers are played. Before they were a clock to the opponent, and the clock never sped up because there just wasn't any way to do that..
Oh! I like this Ajani! Only one W in the mana cost, a much more useful/relevant +1 than Ajani Goldmane, and both the (-) abilities are far better. I hope the new Jace is on par with this Ajani!
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If someone is playing Icy Manipulator against you, you've already won.
I think Ajani is pretty solid in GWx shell as long as its pretty creature heavy. Putting counters on mana dorks is never bad, and you could even +1 or put counters on mutavault for the next 3 months. Is Ajani 4.0 better? Probably. I personally think this Ajani's ultimate is better.
Other current planeswalkers he plays well with:
Elspeth: Elspeth can win the game by itself, but this speeds it up faster. I probably wouldn't drop Elspeth unless I was losing or had an empty board.
Xenagos: I think this is pretty good. You can make satyr tokens and then hit hard, or even tick up xenagos while making tokens.
Kiora: Since her ultimate comes down fast, I think the two can go well together, but I feel safer having more creatures/tokens out.
I think it's awesome that I have so many Ajani's to choose from, and they're all pretty decent, including this one.
If you love Ajani, don't you want to see him as much as possible, in as many ways as possible? I'm confused at all this "how can they make that many...?" Ajani's getting some major love and its great!
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"Until you have lived as a statue, do not talk to me of pigeons."
—Karn, silver golem
Again, it's intended to provide more of a comparison to topdecking him on turn 12 after you're both running out of cards in hand than to represent curving perfectly into him.
While I do think this Ajani is good, the typical test people use when saying "does it protect itself" is based on an empty board versus one creature from the opponent.
I just find that whole scenario ridiculously biased. In blue or red or black based decks, this is certainly a board possibility, but in most G and W decks, by turn 4 you should have multiple creatures. I'm not believing this Ajani will get past Standard, but he's going to be played in Standard, at least in the FNM level, perhaps in a few GPs. Facing one guy and having nobody on your side is just ridiculous when talking about a W walker, because unless your opponent is UW control, which on turn 4 will likely not have a creature ready to go, you should have at least 2 creatures. I've yet to have a board state when fighting anything but our UW exception where I did not have a guy on turn 4 in GW. I'm glad Domri successfully beat that rule because IMO it SHOULDN'T be a way to test for Standard.
It doesn't matter what type of deck you're playing though, you can't always guarantee any particular board position - your opponent will be interacting with you
Here's an example: Let's look at the first Elspeth, Knight Errant
Are you ahead or is the board stable? Throw your creatures into the air and kill your opponent fast!
Do you have no board position? No problem because Elspeth makes tokens for you.
Are you behind? No problem, creature chump blockers while going up in loyalty to buy yourself TONS of time.
There's almost no board position where Elspeth does straight up nothing and that's why she's in like the top 5 of best PWs of all time. PWs that can "protect themselves" are better in a wider variety of board states - that's why they tend to be the best. Again, Ajani has always been the type of PW that needs you to have creatures to work well, that's his niche, and the +1 ability does help somewhat in this regard. However, while the "protect oneself" is not the end all, be all of PW evaluation, it is ALWAYS relevant.
Also, anybody trying to draw any kind of comparison or contrast between this and JTMS should just not be talking, because JTMS is in a whole 'nother league. If you've never played with/against him and therefore don't have first hand experience on how good he is, then that's fine, but please, don't try to use him as an example.
Liliana of the Veil also applies this same "just don't try to compare them" logic. She's also insanely good, and everyone who claims she didn't see crazy amounts of standard play clearly didn't do much Innistrad/Scars block standard. The black guilds in RTR block simply didn't give her the support she needed to stay super tier 1, but even after scars rotated, she remained a format staple that had to be on your radar.
I honestly think people just like to compare everything new to these two just to get the hype train rolling. JTMS is the best planeswalker ever printed, period. I don't even understand how some people think it's up for debate. LotV is good too, sure. She's probably the only walker that can arguably come close to being worthy of comparison there, but I still don't think it's a real contest.
On topic: This new Ajani fills a similar niche role to his previous mono-white incarnations, which is to help your team win faster. He's certainly better than Caller of the Pride, which did a lot of the same things this one does, but fought for the competitive 3-drop slot. Curving Brimaz into this Ajani is quite a beating, and unlike Caller, he's going up as he does it. In Modern, I don't see this card doing anything another walker doesn't already do better. Want to win a white weenie race? Knight-Errant is better. Want to pump a team? I'd rather have Ajani Goldmane or Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. And since we only ever want to use an ultimate as "a nice bonus" when considering them, it's sort of irrelevant. For what it's worth, though, I do like this ultimate more than Goldmane, Caller, and situationally even Knight-Errant. Reducing all damage to 1 is brutal, particularly when you've soaked up a bunch of extra life with lifelink.
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
It doesn't matter what type of deck you're playing though, you can't always guarantee any particular board position - your opponent will be interacting with you
Here's an example: Let's look at the first Elspeth, Knight Errant
Are you ahead or is the board stable? Throw your creatures into the air and kill your opponent fast!
Do you have no board position? No problem because Elspeth makes tokens for you.
Are you behind? No problem, creature chump blockers while going up in loyalty to buy yourself TONS of time.
There's almost no board position where Elspeth does straight up nothing and that's why she's in like the top 5 of best PWs of all time. PWs that can "protect themselves" are better in a wider variety of board states - that's why they tend to be the best. Again, Ajani has always been the type of PW that needs you to have creatures to work well, that's his niche, and the +1 ability does help somewhat in this regard. However, while the "protect oneself" is not the end all, be all of PW evaluation, it is ALWAYS relevant.
So why should it be considered my opponent is interacting with me while I'm not interacting with them? What says they are allowed to have a guy and I don't? I don't go by a made-up scenario that I have never witnessed firsthand, I go by what actual happens in the real life Magic that I play, where even after facing a Downfall on Brimaz on my turn or whatever, I still have the board to protect my planeswalkers. A planeswalker shouldn't just be considered in a vacuum because that's not how Magic plays, it bothers me even moreso now that no planeswalker "protects itself" versus the influx of removal WotC is printing against them, so why should that be a major factor when "Pay 3 mana, remove planeswalker XYZ" is a thing?
The Elspeth point is valid, but it still doesn't change that planeswalkers are now more vulnerable thanks to removal, and that in the world of reality you're not going to goldfish and neither is your opponent, and in the end I still have yet to have a board state after 1 year of GW where I couldn't have saved a planeswalker I played if it really mattered.
Also, I'm not trying to compare Ajani to JtMS or LotV, I'm simply saying there's no reason to say a planeswalker is bad just because of a completely ridiculous Standard scenario. Modern, go ahead, Ajani will NEVER see play there, but Standard, there's no doubt he will see play, and I used those two megawalkers because in a realistic Standard scenario there would be no way they could protect themselves from a normal board state.
I do like that they showing the planeswalkers as they currently are in the story, however. Ajani mourning Elspeth dying/going to the underworld. Garruk is cursed. Presumably Jace'll have some nod toward the guildpact, if only in name.
Make 3 soldiers with elspeth, minus my ajani, buff my soldiers and tick up elspeth.
Seems pretty good, I imagine he's nice in the bant walker shell.
That works if you curve Elspeth into Ajani.
T0 - Elspeth tick to 5, 3 1/1's
T1 - Elspeth tick to 7, 6 1/1's Ajani tick to 2. Swing 3 2/2 for 6
T2 - Ajani tick to 0 Elspeth tick to 8, use emblem. Swing 6 5/5s for 30.
If it really worth running another walker that does virtually nothing on it's own (in the type of decks Elspeth usually goes in) to shorten the clock by one turn?
So we have an a-Bant-ance of planeswalkers in white-blue-green, different versions of them etc
While red and black are cornered because "too strong for standard" and other lousy excuses.
I don't like that. Control will stack up superfriends and red/black will have to go super aggro to win before they lock the game down.
So what happens next? You have to play 4 of Hero's Downfall maindeck or go with a superfriends deck?
Need more planeswalker hate or PW balance on all colors and strategies
Besides Vengeant, when has Ajani not needed creature presence to work? I thought that was kind of his schtick...
EDIT: Also, since he is wearing Elspeth's cloak and this is directly following the Theros storyline, I was kind of hoping that his ultimate would be "Search the hand, graveyard, library, and binder of each other player at your LGS for the card, 'Heliod, God of the Sun.' Rip each of those cards into four pieces and say, 'Later, jerkwad.'"
So, is anyone else bothered by the fact we just got literally another new Ajani right after JOU? As much as i like this card in my superfriends edh deck, it feels like theres a lot of ajanis going around for standard.
I hate that we got a new Ajani, and won't get a new Vess. Only Liliana Vess properly demonstrates her Necromancer suite, but isn't that super a card.
So, is anyone else bothered by the fact we just got literally another new Ajani right after JOU? As much as i like this card in my superfriends edh deck, it feels like theres a lot of ajanis going around for standard.
I hate that we got a new Ajani, and won't get a new Vess. Only Liliana Vess properly demonstrates her Necromancer suite, but isn't that super a card.
That really depends on your format. Vess is very easily classified as the best Liliana in EDH, so I'm happy to see her back for the time being. (And of the Veil is actually far and away the most underwhelming.)
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Check out the thread for my cube if you have the time, and tell me how terrible it is.
Generals meant to be drafted first in a single pack of 6 cards.
And here is the actual cube, meant to be drafted in 4 regular sized packs. (60 card decks)
Poor Ajani. Helping out all the planeswalkers he can because he regrets the fate of Elspeth and all he couldn't do to save her.
It might not be regret. It's already been confirmed a couple of times that Elspeth's story isn't done. Someone further up offered the possible translation as Ajani, the Resolute. Even if it is steadfast(Maybe it will be Ajani, Resolved), it could be because he knows that Elspeth is trapped in Theros' underworld and won't stop until he has brought her back and so wears her cloak to remind himself of his mission. I just imagined a scene where he finally meets her again outside of the underworld and gives her the cloak back.
That all might be unlikely because of magic writers' penchant for depressing story lines, but I remain hopeful regardless.
As for the card, I like the mana cost. I don't really like the +1 because it does little to actually make sure he gets to his ultimate, much like caller of the pride. But at least caller of the pride had a lasting effect in the counters. I see this card being played almost entirely for his -2 in super friends style decks. Not that his plus 1 is useless, it just doesn't do enough I think. Sure it does 4 things, but none of those things really have an impact on the board too much. I guess time will tell.
I like him just fine for my planeswalker deck but it seems like sixy card folks would have to choose between him and mentor of heroes, and mentor just seems better on the board because of its card advantage....
Why so much concern with not being able to directly protect himself? If you're not running him with a good amount of creatures(the he can give vigilance to.. You know... PROTECT him) you're probably not making the most out of his potential.
I love this Ajani, and think he nods at expanded design space for PW that don't have to be the win con themselves but are still more than capable of propelling you to victory. Only making PW that win you games by themselves is limited, awful, lazy design.
I don't see it making any sort of 'superfriends' deck as you need too many creatures for this to be useful.
I think the superfriends deck still works because a bunch of the friends will make tokens. Even the new nissa makes your forests into big elemetals. Ajani-nissa-elspeth seems nasty to me.
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My favorite flavor text: Time of Heroes
Feel free to tell me yours!
Seems pretty good in just about any sort of W/x midrange deck. The +1 isn't super exciting, but buffing a 3-drop elephant and getting in for 3-5 points of lifelink and still being able to block next turn seems decent against aggro decks. I'm not sure if this guy does much against Control, though. I suppose if you can stick him and an Elspeth in back-to-back turns, it could be serious biz, but by then you're probably winning anyway.
Obviously limited bomb. Obviously unplayable in Modern/Legacy. Probably good in Commander.
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Level 2 Judge
Currently playing:
Standard: Superfriends!
Legacy: Nic Fit / Pod
Pauper: Delvar; Tron; Flicker Stuff
Commander: Riku ("Some weird doubple spell thing happened"); Keranos ("I did a Gatherer search for 'random' and 'flip a coin.'"); Superfriends!
Scars block had 14 spells with proliferate.
Modern
RBig RedR
GMean GreenG
WWW AlliesW
BGScavengeBG
WUVenser SilenceWU
EDH
RWAurelia 1 vs 1RW
GWURoonGWU
GWSaffiGW
Other current planeswalkers he plays well with:
Elspeth: Elspeth can win the game by itself, but this speeds it up faster. I probably wouldn't drop Elspeth unless I was losing or had an empty board.
Xenagos: I think this is pretty good. You can make satyr tokens and then hit hard, or even tick up xenagos while making tokens.
Kiora: Since her ultimate comes down fast, I think the two can go well together, but I feel safer having more creatures/tokens out.
If you love Ajani, don't you want to see him as much as possible, in as many ways as possible? I'm confused at all this "how can they make that many...?" Ajani's getting some major love and its great!
—Karn, silver golem
It doesn't matter what type of deck you're playing though, you can't always guarantee any particular board position - your opponent will be interacting with you
Here's an example: Let's look at the first Elspeth, Knight Errant
Are you ahead or is the board stable? Throw your creatures into the air and kill your opponent fast!
Do you have no board position? No problem because Elspeth makes tokens for you.
Are you behind? No problem, creature chump blockers while going up in loyalty to buy yourself TONS of time.
There's almost no board position where Elspeth does straight up nothing and that's why she's in like the top 5 of best PWs of all time. PWs that can "protect themselves" are better in a wider variety of board states - that's why they tend to be the best. Again, Ajani has always been the type of PW that needs you to have creatures to work well, that's his niche, and the +1 ability does help somewhat in this regard. However, while the "protect oneself" is not the end all, be all of PW evaluation, it is ALWAYS relevant.
Liliana of the Veil also applies this same "just don't try to compare them" logic. She's also insanely good, and everyone who claims she didn't see crazy amounts of standard play clearly didn't do much Innistrad/Scars block standard. The black guilds in RTR block simply didn't give her the support she needed to stay super tier 1, but even after scars rotated, she remained a format staple that had to be on your radar.
I honestly think people just like to compare everything new to these two just to get the hype train rolling. JTMS is the best planeswalker ever printed, period. I don't even understand how some people think it's up for debate. LotV is good too, sure. She's probably the only walker that can arguably come close to being worthy of comparison there, but I still don't think it's a real contest.
On topic: This new Ajani fills a similar niche role to his previous mono-white incarnations, which is to help your team win faster. He's certainly better than Caller of the Pride, which did a lot of the same things this one does, but fought for the competitive 3-drop slot. Curving Brimaz into this Ajani is quite a beating, and unlike Caller, he's going up as he does it. In Modern, I don't see this card doing anything another walker doesn't already do better. Want to win a white weenie race? Knight-Errant is better. Want to pump a team? I'd rather have Ajani Goldmane or Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. And since we only ever want to use an ultimate as "a nice bonus" when considering them, it's sort of irrelevant. For what it's worth, though, I do like this ultimate more than Goldmane, Caller, and situationally even Knight-Errant. Reducing all damage to 1 is brutal, particularly when you've soaked up a bunch of extra life with lifelink.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
So why should it be considered my opponent is interacting with me while I'm not interacting with them? What says they are allowed to have a guy and I don't? I don't go by a made-up scenario that I have never witnessed firsthand, I go by what actual happens in the real life Magic that I play, where even after facing a Downfall on Brimaz on my turn or whatever, I still have the board to protect my planeswalkers. A planeswalker shouldn't just be considered in a vacuum because that's not how Magic plays, it bothers me even moreso now that no planeswalker "protects itself" versus the influx of removal WotC is printing against them, so why should that be a major factor when "Pay 3 mana, remove planeswalker XYZ" is a thing?
The Elspeth point is valid, but it still doesn't change that planeswalkers are now more vulnerable thanks to removal, and that in the world of reality you're not going to goldfish and neither is your opponent, and in the end I still have yet to have a board state after 1 year of GW where I couldn't have saved a planeswalker I played if it really mattered.
Also, I'm not trying to compare Ajani to JtMS or LotV, I'm simply saying there's no reason to say a planeswalker is bad just because of a completely ridiculous Standard scenario. Modern, go ahead, Ajani will NEVER see play there, but Standard, there's no doubt he will see play, and I used those two megawalkers because in a realistic Standard scenario there would be no way they could protect themselves from a normal board state.
That works if you curve Elspeth into Ajani.
T0 - Elspeth tick to 5, 3 1/1's
T1 - Elspeth tick to 7, 6 1/1's Ajani tick to 2. Swing 3 2/2 for 6
T2 - Ajani tick to 0 Elspeth tick to 8, use emblem. Swing 6 5/5s for 30.
If it really worth running another walker that does virtually nothing on it's own (in the type of decks Elspeth usually goes in) to shorten the clock by one turn?
While red and black are cornered because "too strong for standard" and other lousy excuses.
I don't like that. Control will stack up superfriends and red/black will have to go super aggro to win before they lock the game down.
So what happens next? You have to play 4 of Hero's Downfall maindeck or go with a superfriends deck?
Need more planeswalker hate or PW balance on all colors and strategies
/rant
EDIT: Also, since he is wearing Elspeth's cloak and this is directly following the Theros storyline, I was kind of hoping that his ultimate would be "Search the hand, graveyard, library, and binder of each other player at your LGS for the card, 'Heliod, God of the Sun.' Rip each of those cards into four pieces and say, 'Later, jerkwad.'"
I hate that we got a new Ajani, and won't get a new Vess. Only Liliana Vess properly demonstrates her Necromancer suite, but isn't that super a card.
That really depends on your format. Vess is very easily classified as the best Liliana in EDH, so I'm happy to see her back for the time being. (And of the Veil is actually far and away the most underwhelming.)
Generals meant to be drafted first in a single pack of 6 cards.
And here is the actual cube, meant to be drafted in 4 regular sized packs. (60 card decks)
It might not be regret. It's already been confirmed a couple of times that Elspeth's story isn't done. Someone further up offered the possible translation as Ajani, the Resolute. Even if it is steadfast(Maybe it will be Ajani, Resolved), it could be because he knows that Elspeth is trapped in Theros' underworld and won't stop until he has brought her back and so wears her cloak to remind himself of his mission. I just imagined a scene where he finally meets her again outside of the underworld and gives her the cloak back.
That all might be unlikely because of magic writers' penchant for depressing story lines, but I remain hopeful regardless.
As for the card, I like the mana cost. I don't really like the +1 because it does little to actually make sure he gets to his ultimate, much like caller of the pride. But at least caller of the pride had a lasting effect in the counters. I see this card being played almost entirely for his -2 in super friends style decks. Not that his plus 1 is useless, it just doesn't do enough I think. Sure it does 4 things, but none of those things really have an impact on the board too much. I guess time will tell.
EDH:
Niv-Mizzet
Legacy:
The Rack
Modern
Venser, the Sojourner Control
I love this Ajani, and think he nods at expanded design space for PW that don't have to be the win con themselves but are still more than capable of propelling you to victory. Only making PW that win you games by themselves is limited, awful, lazy design.
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Currently playing Knight of the Reliquary - Retreat to Coralhelm Combo
I think the superfriends deck still works because a bunch of the friends will make tokens. Even the new nissa makes your forests into big elemetals. Ajani-nissa-elspeth seems nasty to me.
Feel free to tell me yours!
Obviously limited bomb. Obviously unplayable in Modern/Legacy. Probably good in Commander.
Currently playing:
Standard: Superfriends!
Legacy: Nic Fit / Pod
Pauper: Delvar; Tron; Flicker Stuff
Commander: Riku ("Some weird doubple spell thing happened"); Keranos ("I did a Gatherer search for 'random' and 'flip a coin.'"); Superfriends!