MTG Salvation

Hello, at my store, there are a few long time players that run 5c planeswalkers. No real control, board lockdown, MLD, or counterspells. Mainly goodstuff-spells, doubling season like cards (for PWs to enter and ult), and sometimes The Chain Veil shenanigans.

They look like fun but would you say it is worth the investment if someone wants to try it?

As far as 5C goes i think it isnt worth the effort - not even talking about the investment...

But, a friend of mine runs an Angus MacKenzie build that's sturdy as could be. It's mostly PW, protection and good stuff. Being 3C the investment is okay in comparison and it makes for a consistent deck.

Maybe 3C is the limit, all 5C i've seen looked fun but was rather imconsistent.

Quote from NoNeedToBragoBoutIt »

As far as 5C goes i think it isnt worth the effort - not even talking about the investment...

But, a friend of mine runs an Angus MacKenzie build that's sturdy as could be. It's mostly PW, protection and good stuff. Being 3C the investment is okay in comparison and it makes for a consistent deck.

Maybe 3C is the limit, all 5C i've seen looked fun but was rather imconsistent.

The two people with 5c pretty much have every fetch, dual lands, check lands, etc. I don't think I have ever seen them with color issues (Chromatic Lantern/Prismatic Omen)

I don't even think the investment is that high anymore...

Chromatic Lantern
Oath of Nissa
Command Tower
Rupture Spire
Transguild Promenade
Mana Confluence
Reflecting Pool
Darksteel Ingot
Commander's Sphere
Vivid Crag etc.

Add in a hint of green ramp, like Farseek, and you're pretty good to go.

That said, I'd prefer 5C to 3C anyway because most of the PW wins in 3C will be the same every time and I value variety very heavily in my decks.

I play a Sultai list. It is fun to play, but I wouldn't call it a top tier strategy.

If you're looking for a cutthroat build, Super Friends isn't really what you want.

Quote from Weebos »

I play a Sultai list. It is fun to play, but I wouldn't call it a top tier strategy.

If you're looking for a cutthroat build, Super Friends isn't really what you want.

Yeah, my 'friends deck is Bant but I'll definitely second this sentiment - fun to play but not overly powerful. It's not bad effectiveness wise, but it's not gonna compete with the top decks uot there.

One of the guys in our group had 5c planeswalkers for a while. I played it several times and it was pretty boring. IMO it's a fine deck to build if you already have most of the stuff in your collection, but building towards it isn't advisable. Maybe ask the guys at your store if you can take it for a spin a few times?

If multiple Planeswalker decks are at the table together, that is going to be a miserable experience for any deck with a low creature count. If a deck doesn’t have a high enough creature count and a decent plan for evasion though, I can’t imagine what win condition it could be running that cares anything about Planeswalkers. And for a creature based deck, Planeswalkers are about the easiest permanent type to deal with, as long as you have a plan against mass removal, Maze of Ith, so on. A fog general like Angus MacKenzie, Lady Evangela or something like Rubinia Soulsinger might give you one more thing to deal with, but should be easy going still.

So, I think the Planeswalker goodstuff meme somewhat relies on a high density of other pillowfort decks in the meta to work very well. Sort of the “next level”, passive-aggressive pillowfort, where players are tired even of their enchantments getting killed as much as they do. Outside of combat, very few things kill planeswalkers.

We had a couple kicking around, mine was sultai. Overall they were pretty dull and they either locked up the game and started firing off ultimates or just rolled over to whatever random creature deck was at the table. At least in our group if you stick a walker, its going to get attacked.

I made a Jeskai Superfriends (Justice League America) list piloted by Narset and it isn't bad. It was the most fair way I found to make her. I think getting to play a bunch of Planeswalkers is a pretty cool thing and it is fun, even if it isn't amazingly strong, though it can get out of hand.

The best way I came up with to run it is by including a lot of stax/prison effects and some land destruction, but that may be too much for a more casual playgroup.

There seems to be a poor cost:return ratio with superfriends decks: lots of expensive lands (especially if you go 5c), lots of expensive mythics (even the cheaper ones are still 10x more expensive than budget deck filler cards), all for a deck that can compete on even footing against low and mid-level decks but not against tuned cutthroat decks.

I don't know about anybody else, but I would feel pretty awkward if I spent $1000 on a deck that would reasonably be seen played along side $35 precons. Maybe that's just me though. At that level I'd rather have 20 different decks.

I don't think superfriends are even necessarily bad (or more expensive than comparable lists if playing them in a 75% meta), I just think it matters how willing you are to punish opponents' resources and boards since you have walkers, which are unaffected by most board wipes and provide persistent value through Stax locks (taps + untaps, token generation, card draw, etc.). Obviously if you aren't playing things to stop your opponents from challenging your board and attacking you through your sparse, or nonexistent creature base, they are going to not fare so well.

Cards like Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, Sphere of Safety, Smoke, and others do work in these kinds of lists.

That's a fair point. To be honest, I never noticed that. The biggest threat though is players killing your lifetotal on a whim, something PWs can't exactly help. They are still some of the best defensive cards in a deck like this, not even to protect PWs, but to ensure your own lack of creatures isn't your death.

Lightmine Field is a cute card too.

Quote from Underhill83 »

I think Superfriends is mostly for fun. Yes, it's expensive! Yes, it's not top-tier!
So what? It can be fun!

This isn't really superfriends, though. Superfriends needs the boardwipes, tokens, Propaganda, and the like to protect the planeswalkers. I mean, yeah, this has Doubling Season, Gilder Bairn, and some proliferate cards, but that's not really enough.

Mostly with planeswalkers I go with what I can use, rather than planeswalkers for their own sake.

It's the same as other deck types. Do you honestly think "Hey, Holy Strength is a one-mana cantrip once I get an enchantress out." when playing enchantress? Even Uril, where that's a +3/+4, I'd be hard-pressed to justify Holy Strength. (I mean, yeah, affinity works off of Ornithopters and the like, but it's the exception.)

you can check my sig for my 5c PW deck (though I am not sure if it is up to date with my latest version that ran MLD and control.

I do wish to build a Angus PW deck as the best colors for PWs are WUG (not satung Black and red are bad, far from it, but as far as mono color goes they are the lesser of the bunch. (only black one i can see taking full effect is Liliana Vess and then Nicol Bolas, planeswalker requires 3 colors.

I'm really tempted to make a 5c superfriends deck with all the forgotten planeswalker cards no one cares about anymore; nissa revane and Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded will be my win cons.

Why not two colors, like UW? Those two colors can give you a decent pillowfort for your PWs, and you have access to generals like Isperia, Supreme Judge who works nicely with Gideon Jura, Hanna, Ship's Navigator who can rebuild your fort, or Medomai the Ageless who gives you an extra turn worth of PW activations.

You have to invest a lot less in your manabase.

I enjoy mine, it's abzan colors, it's a cross between enchantress and superfriends. Mostly made up of cards I already own, I wanted to build an enchantress deck but also wanted to play all my favorite planeswalkers which happen to be mostly abzan colors.

Mine has ended up very combo oriented with infinite mana into sliver token, infinite turns with ral zarek or backbreaking emblems like Narset. Its still only "ok" but it will win often against 75% decks. Not a great cost to power ratio but by far my favorite deck so far. My list is somewhere in Trav_Ragnar's primer if anyone is interested.

I ran Superfriends, and my Superfriends ran Superfriends. One person ran Legion of Doom. I do not believe most people think Superfriends is a top tier deck, but most would agree, it can get expensive if one wants the optimal mana base and best support cards. As for overrated, I am sure most know their respective place in their playgroup; I doubt they are highly regarded beyond a thematic sense.

An acquaintance built a 15 God (Theros) Karona, False God deck with the Godhead of Awe cycle and other color heavy creatures which included the perfect mana base and best support cards. Was it expensive? Yes. Was it top tier? No. Did it win? Once, but that win will forever be remembered. It is not about how expensive or high ranking the deck is, it is about..."Can I build it? Will it work?"

A hobby is not worth investing in; yet, it is a hobby, so one will spend. If you get the mana base, you can most probably use and reuse the mana base until you stop playing. This is true for many support cards.

Keep brewing.