Cubers, I want to know your perspective on planeswalkers. Having played Magic well before their introduction, it took a while to warm up to this new type of card. Flash ahead to today and I see the interesting value they present as a "pick". My main question/topic is about balancing planeswalkers across colors. I prefer smaller cubes (around 400ish); please keep this idea in mind.
--------- Question/Topic
-Should each color get the same amount of PW'ers to represent them (ie; each color gets 2)?
-Should each color get an unlimited amount of PW'ers to use?
*For the base 5 colors, white and blue dominate (especially after AVR). Based on what the cards do, would access to more PW'ers skew the balance of power in a cube? White can realistically run all of its planeswalker options. Compare that to black or red.
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-How does multicolor play out in the PWer gameplan?
*For multicolor, I think 'guilds' should look for the best [option] card available. If that card happens to be a PW'er, all the power to them...because not every 'guild' has a representative (ie; UR = no UR walker to select).
--
I'm not necessarily looking for a right or wrong answer (whole thing is subjective). i do want your perspective when building a cube.
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I mean, hell, we're all on a forum for something that most people would describe as a "children's card game"...do what makes you happy. You are never too old to enjoy yourself.
I would include some planeswalkers based on merit, not specify any particular requisite number of them per color or section. They are basically enchantments you can attack, but get better the longer they stay in play.
They are powerful cards and many of them are worthy of inclusion in the cube. I would evaluate them on a case by case basis just like you do with every other card.
I don't think that each colour need to have the same number of planeswalkers and have never found it to be an issue in cube.
I think that it is up to personal preference for if the planeswalkers need to be limited. My playgroup like the element that they bring to the game so I cannot really see limiting them in my cube (450 cards). At 360 I would probably consider limiting them (if my playgroup wanted to) and agree with magicmerl with 4. In general I would rather not limit them though.
We run a 4 card guild section for our gold section. I don't think every guild needs a pw and agree the cards should get in on individual merit. To that end, I run Ajani Vengeant, Venser, the Sojourner, Sarkhan Vol and Sarkhan the Mad (who probably should be cut, just haven't gotten around to it).
1. No, I wouldn't set a specific number of 'walkers per color.
2. No, I wouldn't cap the number of 'walkers per color, but I would watch the overall quantity in the cube. My max at 360 would be 24, and I'm nowhere near it yet.
I limited Planeswalker for a while. But right now I don't really care. They are enchantment that can be attacked into and remove by any creature that can attack. But if the number reach 5-10 per color, I probably will.
I limit it to 3 planeswalkers per color.
I like color balance.
Blue and White get some tough cuts.
Green and Red are right at the limit.
Black can't even hit it, hoping for more black Planeswalkers in the future.
I've found that cube tends to revolve around planeswalkers if they aren't limited somehow. I keep them to one per color, and I've found that they end up being powerful, sought-after early picks, but don't dominate our games the way they were before.
I've found that cube tends to revolve around planeswalkers if they aren't limited somehow. I keep them to one per color, and I've found that they end up being powerful, sought-after early picks, but don't dominate our games the way they were before.
I've found it to be the opposite. Planeswalkers are powerful cards, but the player with the 'walker doesn't auto-win by any stretch of the imagination. Just like any other card type, I don't think there should be any arbitrary limit on the number of them that a color can have access to. Any more than another card type should have a limit for one reason or another.
Planeswalkers also need answers in the cube. Good burn, O-ring effects and evasive beaters to attack them. If your cube doesn't have enough of them spread across the colors, your walkers are going to be better than normal.
I won't ever limit them. They are some of the best cards in the cube, and encourage high level play to answer/play them correctly.
If you had no PWs in your cube and wanted to add them would you add them as you get them or would you wait until you had a handful of them? Currently the only 'walker I own is Ajani V (and Bolas but he isnt going in) but Im concerned about putting him in all by himself.
Interesting points. My view on planeswalkers may be "evolving." I might consider bumping them up to two per color. I think that at some point, limiting them is fine. I wouldn't say, limit enchantments out of hand, but I wouldn't want a ton of enchantments in every color either...unless that was my cube's theme. Will the addition of five more planeswalkers overhwhelm my cube and make for more boring games? I'll report back when I can get some games in.
I absolutely support limited total planeswalkers in the cube, because they do create a subgame in a way that enchantments don't. That is to say, I don't limit them because they are too good. I want less windmill slam obvious picks, and I want a diversity of game experiences, so I limit the total number of cards that create the same approximate type of subgame.
Now if you start from that perspective, then what to do as you limit the number of PWs in the cube gets very interesting. Is this one where you just acknowledge that certain colors are dominant in creating powerful subgame effects? Or do you try to spread the love? I haven't answered that yet. If you get in the mindset of trying to have some kind of color balance, you quickly wind up asking 'WTF do I do with Ajani Vengeant?'
It's a messy situation that I don't have a pat answer to right now. But I know that I don't run actual infinite planeswalkers in my unpowered cube for the same reason that I don't run Sol Ring and Library -- too many obvious first picks, overall format warping.
Planeswalkers also need answers in the cube. Good burn, O-ring effects and evasive beaters to attack them. If your cube doesn't have enough of them spread across the colors, your walkers are going to be better than normal.
This is very true. Good point on many levels.
I won't ever limit them. They are some of the best cards in the cube, and encourage high level play to answer/play them correctly.
I mean within a short (by MTG terms) period of time, we went from having 5 initial PW'ers to basically a new 2 or 3 every couple of months. Granted, some like Nissa and the new 2cc red dude aren't making it into cube lists, but they ARE eating up slots. I feel even now you could make an argument about color balance and cardtype balance (point on this thread lol). With the way things are trending, Planeswalkers will eventually take over a % of slots. You wouldn't mind this?
Interesting points. My view on planeswalkers may be "evolving." I might consider bumping them up to two per color. I think that at some point, limiting them is fine. I wouldn't say, limit enchantments out of hand, but I wouldn't want a ton of enchantments in every color either...unless that was my cube's theme. Will the addition of five more planeswalkers overhwhelm my cube and make for more boring games? I'll report back when I can get some games in.
That's how I feel currently. As more get tossed into the magic card pool, you'll have an increasing amount of the cube as PW'ers.
@'Do you limit enchantments' idea:
Cubes already breakdown creatures vs spells. People also look at casting cost (eyeballing things rather than getting specific on X amount of cc drops, etc). I think consciously tracking PW'ers isn't an odd progression, especially as WotC pumps out more and more.
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I mean, hell, we're all on a forum for something that most people would describe as a "children's card game"...do what makes you happy. You are never too old to enjoy yourself.
I mean within a short (by MTG terms) period of time, we went from having 5 initial PW'ers to basically a new 2 or 3 every couple of months. Granted, some like Nissa and the new 2cc red dude aren't making it into cube lists, but they ARE eating up slots. I feel even now you could make an argument about color balance and cardtype balance (point on this thread lol). With the way things are trending, Planeswalkers will eventually take over a % of slots. You wouldn't mind this?
They compete against all other cards in their section, just like every other card type does. Sometimes 'walkers will replace spells, and sometimes they'll be replaced by other card types. I don't think they're going to wind up dominating as high a percentage of the cube as you think. I have less of them by percentage in my 360 than I did when I was at 450.
In fact, I think the creature quality right now is even more of a concern. They're printing creatures that are replacing spells instead of spells to replace spells. Planeswalkers are some of the few noncreature cards that are still good enough to compete with the power creep of recent creatures.
I don't have a limit on the % of slots for PWs. Could be 100% for all I care, so long as that was the most diverse and interactive play environment I could cultivate. I think currently people are worried about too many PWs because the ones printed have generally been fairly excellent and the answers to them have been limited, and in turn this skews the cube environment towards a fairly midrangey type of play. The planeswalker card type is one of the most interactive in the game, and one of the most difficult to balance, so I think it remains to be seen what sort of diversity in the planeswalker card and answers will be developed. I'm very hesitant to ever put any sort of hard cap on my cube structure, even across colors.
I'm going to bump this thing, 5 years later. We drafted today and had a guy go 0-3 with a superfriends deck that didn't actually do anything other than cast planeswalkers. That feels good to me. Most planeswalkers should be there to do specific stuff, I think. My favorite walkers are the archetype enablers/enhancers like the Tezzerets, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Chandra, Flamecaller, etc.
Anyway, after my impending Amonkhet update, I'll be at 27 planeswalkers in my 450. That seems like just about as many as I want, and maybe one or two too many. To me, it's more about how many are in the cube total, rather than about setting arbitrary caps at each color.
This is just me spitballing. I think it's worth talking about, though, with the proliferation of good walkers lately. How are you navigating this? Or do you not find it to be a problem yet?
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At 540 I'm at 33 planeswalkers (that's including flipwalkers). Planeswalkers are kept in check in my cube via wide / aggressive strategies and appropriate answers. My only concern with planeswalker density right now is name saturation: too many Gatewatch names floating around. This is partially mitigated by the fact that Jace can Brainstorm / loot superfluous copies, Liliana can discard, and Gideon can go platinum, haha.
Planeswalkers are kept in check in my cube via wide / aggressive strategies and appropriate answers. My only concern with planeswalker density right now is name saturation: too many Gatewatch names floating around.
I feel the same way, and while competition with other kinds of spells and creatures has kept my walker count down to 23 (+ 3 flip walkers) at 450, I really don't like the idea of having too many walkers with the same names doing things that are too similar. I'm feeling like 3 is the limit for me for any one planeswalker type. In my blue section, I liked Jace, Architect of Thought enough better than other blue 4s that I was willing to keep him in alongside Jace Beleren and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. However, once Jace, Vryn's Prodigy came out and proved to be good enough for cube, Jace, AoT had to go.
We're hitting a similar point in white with Gideons, and while I can certainly find a card to cut out of my current white 3s that's not as good as the new Gideon of the Trials, I'm not really comfortable with having 4 different iterations of Gideon that turn into a big dude during your main phase. Not only do they risk causing awkward decisions due to the planeswalker rule, but too much of a good thing gets kind of boring, so I really don't want a 4th Gideon in my cube. If new Gideon turns out to be good enough (as I expect it will), one of the previous Gideons is going to have to go when/if I get one. With any luck, Gideon will get killed off in the lore so that we won't have to deal with Cubable Gideon #5 down the road. I know I'm not the only one getting sick of Gideons.
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I have only 16 planeswalkers in a cube close to 1600 cards. My cube doesn't like super bombs, so I keep out anything that is overly powerful without relying on anything else, which includes several of the best planeswalkers. Right now, I have 1-3 planeswalker in each color, and seven of the guilds have a planeswalker (plus Sarkhan Unbroken). The number feels fine to me. You don't always open them, but it feels pretty good when you do, and they are always good, but never over powered.
I feel like most of the planeswalkers are interchangeable goodstuff. One Jace is not necessarily as good as another, but pretty much all of the Jaces are so good compared to the average card that I can just play whichever ones I happen to have. I'm much partial to deck-specific planeswalkers as opposed to the generic goodstuff we mostly get. I would like to get a planeswalker in BU, GW, and RW to finish out the guilds. I like planeswalkers, but I don't feel like they are necessarily good for cubes in large numbers.
For what it's worth, it was announced recently (I think on MaRo's blog) that the Gatewatch planeswalkers won't dominate quite as much in the coming years. I look forward to having some new options, or seeing some revamped old friends.
While I don't try to pick the same walker for each color, I don't have a problem with having multiples of the same planeswalker. I think it actually add's to the strategy of the game, because do you really want to run 5 Gideon in the same deck? You will probably end up killing one for the other.
On the other hand, It's nice when all of the planeswalkers are not doing the same exact thing in your deck.
I am 100% for limiting the number of planeswalkers in cubes. I do not agree with the argument of "Would you limit other card types in your cube". If they were not as swingy or start a 'sub-game' then I would think they are fine. The new card type in combination with swingy and sub-game of 'kill the planeswalker' is just too much. When there are a larger amount of cards that handle planeswalkers I'll reconsider my position but as of right now I stand by it. I know a lot of people do not agree with me.
i started my cube with a no planeswalkers rule for the same reasons. I found that the flip walkers were a good compromise and then later settled on the flip walkers plus one walker for each main colour.
I also like the flavour of having baby jace, vryn's prodigy, having him transform and then getting the final evolution with JTMS. Same for Nissa, Liliana, and Chandra now that we have chandra, torch of defiance. In white i could have gone with gideon, ally of zendikar but i dont really like gideon and went for elspeth even though it didnt fit flavour wise haha.
---------
Question/Topic
-Should each color get the same amount of PW'ers to represent them (ie; each color gets 2)?
-Should each color get an unlimited amount of PW'ers to use?
*For the base 5 colors, white and blue dominate (especially after AVR). Based on what the cards do, would access to more PW'ers skew the balance of power in a cube? White can realistically run all of its planeswalker options. Compare that to black or red.
------------
-How does multicolor play out in the PWer gameplan?
*For multicolor, I think 'guilds' should look for the best [option] card available. If that card happens to be a PW'er, all the power to them...because not every 'guild' has a representative (ie; UR = no UR walker to select).
--
I'm not necessarily looking for a right or wrong answer (whole thing is subjective). i do want your perspective when building a cube.
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2. No. I think that about 4 would be the max in a colour (specifically, blue and white).
And I don't run any multicoloured planeswalkers, since they don't get in on merit. Edit: Except Ajani Vengeant
They are powerful cards and many of them are worthy of inclusion in the cube. I would evaluate them on a case by case basis just like you do with every other card.
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I think that it is up to personal preference for if the planeswalkers need to be limited. My playgroup like the element that they bring to the game so I cannot really see limiting them in my cube (450 cards). At 360 I would probably consider limiting them (if my playgroup wanted to) and agree with magicmerl with 4. In general I would rather not limit them though.
We run a 4 card guild section for our gold section. I don't think every guild needs a pw and agree the cards should get in on individual merit. To that end, I run Ajani Vengeant, Venser, the Sojourner, Sarkhan Vol and Sarkhan the Mad (who probably should be cut, just haven't gotten around to it).
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2. No, I wouldn't cap the number of 'walkers per color, but I would watch the overall quantity in the cube. My max at 360 would be 24, and I'm nowhere near it yet.
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I like color balance.
Blue and White get some tough cuts.
Green and Red are right at the limit.
Black can't even hit it, hoping for more black Planeswalkers in the future.
I've found it to be the opposite. Planeswalkers are powerful cards, but the player with the 'walker doesn't auto-win by any stretch of the imagination. Just like any other card type, I don't think there should be any arbitrary limit on the number of them that a color can have access to. Any more than another card type should have a limit for one reason or another.
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I won't ever limit them. They are some of the best cards in the cube, and encourage high level play to answer/play them correctly.
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Now if you start from that perspective, then what to do as you limit the number of PWs in the cube gets very interesting. Is this one where you just acknowledge that certain colors are dominant in creating powerful subgame effects? Or do you try to spread the love? I haven't answered that yet. If you get in the mindset of trying to have some kind of color balance, you quickly wind up asking 'WTF do I do with Ajani Vengeant?'
It's a messy situation that I don't have a pat answer to right now. But I know that I don't run actual infinite planeswalkers in my unpowered cube for the same reason that I don't run Sol Ring and Library -- too many obvious first picks, overall format warping.
This is very true. Good point on many levels.
I mean within a short (by MTG terms) period of time, we went from having 5 initial PW'ers to basically a new 2 or 3 every couple of months. Granted, some like Nissa and the new 2cc red dude aren't making it into cube lists, but they ARE eating up slots. I feel even now you could make an argument about color balance and cardtype balance (point on this thread lol). With the way things are trending, Planeswalkers will eventually take over a % of slots. You wouldn't mind this?
That's how I feel currently. As more get tossed into the magic card pool, you'll have an increasing amount of the cube as PW'ers.
@'Do you limit enchantments' idea:
Cubes already breakdown creatures vs spells. People also look at casting cost (eyeballing things rather than getting specific on X amount of cc drops, etc). I think consciously tracking PW'ers isn't an odd progression, especially as WotC pumps out more and more.
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They compete against all other cards in their section, just like every other card type does. Sometimes 'walkers will replace spells, and sometimes they'll be replaced by other card types. I don't think they're going to wind up dominating as high a percentage of the cube as you think. I have less of them by percentage in my 360 than I did when I was at 450.
In fact, I think the creature quality right now is even more of a concern. They're printing creatures that are replacing spells instead of spells to replace spells. Planeswalkers are some of the few noncreature cards that are still good enough to compete with the power creep of recent creatures.
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Anyway, after my impending Amonkhet update, I'll be at 27 planeswalkers in my 450. That seems like just about as many as I want, and maybe one or two too many. To me, it's more about how many are in the cube total, rather than about setting arbitrary caps at each color.
This is just me spitballing. I think it's worth talking about, though, with the proliferation of good walkers lately. How are you navigating this? Or do you not find it to be a problem yet?
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I feel the same way, and while competition with other kinds of spells and creatures has kept my walker count down to 23 (+ 3 flip walkers) at 450, I really don't like the idea of having too many walkers with the same names doing things that are too similar. I'm feeling like 3 is the limit for me for any one planeswalker type. In my blue section, I liked Jace, Architect of Thought enough better than other blue 4s that I was willing to keep him in alongside Jace Beleren and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. However, once Jace, Vryn's Prodigy came out and proved to be good enough for cube, Jace, AoT had to go.
We're hitting a similar point in white with Gideons, and while I can certainly find a card to cut out of my current white 3s that's not as good as the new Gideon of the Trials, I'm not really comfortable with having 4 different iterations of Gideon that turn into a big dude during your main phase. Not only do they risk causing awkward decisions due to the planeswalker rule, but too much of a good thing gets kind of boring, so I really don't want a 4th Gideon in my cube. If new Gideon turns out to be good enough (as I expect it will), one of the previous Gideons is going to have to go when/if I get one. With any luck, Gideon will get killed off in the lore so that we won't have to deal with Cubable Gideon #5 down the road. I know I'm not the only one getting sick of Gideons.
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I feel like most of the planeswalkers are interchangeable goodstuff. One Jace is not necessarily as good as another, but pretty much all of the Jaces are so good compared to the average card that I can just play whichever ones I happen to have. I'm much partial to deck-specific planeswalkers as opposed to the generic goodstuff we mostly get. I would like to get a planeswalker in BU, GW, and RW to finish out the guilds. I like planeswalkers, but I don't feel like they are necessarily good for cubes in large numbers.
My favorite planeswalkers in my cube have been Venser, the Sojourner, Sarkhan the Mad,Tezzeret the Seeker, and Garruk Wildspeaker. Most planeswalkers don't really catch my eye. Saheeli Rai and Nahiri, the Harbinger are the only recent ones to really interest me.
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On the other hand, It's nice when all of the planeswalkers are not doing the same exact thing in your deck.
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I also like the flavour of having baby jace, vryn's prodigy, having him transform and then getting the final evolution with JTMS. Same for Nissa, Liliana, and Chandra now that we have chandra, torch of defiance. In white i could have gone with gideon, ally of zendikar but i dont really like gideon and went for elspeth even though it didnt fit flavour wise haha.