Ranking the planeswalkers 3: 60-51

So I've learned quite a lot in these last few days. I've never played against an Atraxa deck so thinking that Ajani was bad was something I am used to. I'm gonna try and rate the walkers and give you examples on why I think it's good or bad. Trying to be fair and find out strategys that I'm not familiar with and find spots for all of them. Even if niche.

Anyway, we've gone through the bad and niche cards of the set and we're slowly hitting the cards that I'd call good. We're not at the all stars quite yet and won't be for a while but we're getting to the cards that have room in multiple decks. Anyway, enough of that, lets get to the good stuff.




60: Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath

 This guy looks so cool and menacing. Like someone you just wouldn't want to mess with. He looks like he's staring down a camera for a metal album.

Anyway, I'm sure you're not here for me to talk about the art of cards. Or maybe you are, how would I know.

Anyway, Ob in my opinion is the worst of the commander planeswalkers, granted the ceiling is surprisingly high there because turns out abusing planeswalkers is super powerful.

Anyway for 5 mana you can drain each opponent. You gain the life lost but this is not something you'd pay 5 mana for. Following you can make a massive 5/5 demon to protect Ob for a good while. Afterwards you can drain all the way up to his ult which can draw you an insane amount of cards.
Here's my problem with him, his plus is insanely underwhelming. The turn after you make his first demon and now have a threat I'd rather sacrifice Ob himself just to recast him so he can get to his ultimate faster. The first ability is often the most important part of a walker and his seems so underwhelming for the five mana you're paying for him.
You should note that since you can play him as a commander you can ultimate him and that should be your main strategy but it's easier said than done since you have to survive 3 times as many turns with him and at that point I just don't see it

Score: 15/100

Played in: Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath commander decks. (Duh)



59: Dovin Baan

We have the first of our Kaladesh walkers and I feel that Nightcrawler is easily the worst of the bunch. At 4 mana he's perfectly reasonable in the mana cost department and his ultimate will pretty much win you the game when you get there. However that's at LEAST 4 extra turns (Unless you're doing antics with proliferate/doubling season) and during that time you're just shrinking one creature on a board of probably many. The minus while good doesn't feel worth the 4 mana investment. I say that because if you cast him just to minus it's more likely that he was gonna die the turn you were gonna cast him anyway. 4 mana for one card is never good. White and Blue have plenty of ways of dealing with creatures from attacking but there also have a lot better walkers (You'll see soon) that are more worth the protection. I also don't feel like decks like Atraxa would like him. You have 82 walkers and he doesn't really synergise or is broken enough to warren that slot.


Score: 18/100
Played in: Azorius control. Brago would like him a bit

58: Kaya, ghost Assassin

Kaya is another card I feel is super cool. She can use all her abilities the turn she is down, and her first ability to blink creatures and herself works so well with her lore that I don't know what to do with myself anymore.

There is really one big fatal flaw with Kaya.

She pretty much has no home. I know, I know, every card can find a slot somewhere (Except Tibbers) and has a use in some decks. Kaya just seems all over the place that while her abilities are decent they don't seem to work that well with another.

The zero ability blinks her so you can repeat the other two whenever but the drain and draw are so underwhelming for a character this interesting. And when I think blink decks I think of Roon, Rasputin, and plenty of blue white decks. Kaya can't go into any of those. If she was white blue she would be far far far higher on the list (Probably next to another white blue blink planeswalker) but right now she's at 58, homeless, cold, and without a deck to fall back on.


Score: 20/100
Played in: I really have no idea



57: Nicol Bolas, planeswalker

There is no doubt at all that bolas is powerful. Every ability is great and can swing the game in your favor the moment he comes down. The ultimate is very likely to destroy a player out of the game. The minus two steals the best creature and the plus grows him to hard to kill range and very quickly.

So...how is he so low? Well remember when I yelled "SIX FUCKING MANA" for Sorin, Grim Nemesis? Well...it's the same thing. I get that he's super powerful so lowering him a bit wouldn't work. But at 8 mana you're getting into spells that end the game. Bolas neuters a single player if left alone for too long and just aids you til then. However if you're not already winning at that point it's gonna be hard to take over the board and even worse if you are winning then you really don't need to cast him in most situations.

Another massive problem is the colors. I this leaves him with very few decks he can actually go in and narrows down his already narrow plays farther. He is an absurdly powerful card, but it often won't matter. Sorry nickels.

Score 5 Nickels/100

Played in: 5 color conflux dream halls antics deck




56: Ob Nixilis Reignited

Here he is again, looking all cool as shit. Won't save you Ob.

Anyway this Ob doesn't even care about the demon protecting him, he comes in and bitchslaps the creature off the board without a second thought. I think that alone makes him better than the other one. The plus draws you a card and which should get you some removal or answers to keep this guy on board. The ultimate is pretty good but doesn't seem fitting for a black deck. It shines well in others but again, depending on planeswalkers to ultimate doesn't exactly work in commander. So a five mana potentially double kill spell is pretty much that. If you can ultimate him you likely will be killing that player...yes only one player

Score: 28/100

Played in: Nekusaar wheels



55: Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
You guys remember when Jace came out and people pretty much said that he was Ob Nixilis?
Confused? Well look at it this way, they're both five mana for five loyalty, both first abilities draw a card however Jace does it better since you aren't forced to draw the top card if you don't want to.
Both remove creatures with the minus but Jace has more loyalty afterwards. Ob removes them betterly (Yes betterly) but Jace takes less loyalty to do it, I think that's a fair trade. The ultimate hurts all of your opponents unlike Ob above him. Those few improvements put him up slightly more than Ob but he still has othe same issues.
He's 5 mana for a few underwhelming abilities.

Score: 30/100

Played in: Heavy Control decks





54: Sarkhan Unbroken

Poor Sarkhan can't escape my cruelty. Here's the top Sarkhan...and he can't brake the top 50.
And it's not that this card is bad. Actually for 5 mana he does some decent stuff. Like Jace and Ob before him he draws a card and adds mana so nice bonus there. The minus is a little better than both of them since you have both a threat and blocker for Sarkhan and the ultimate takes your entire fucking deck filled with dragons and throws it on the board. That will likely kill the entire table. Here's the problem with that. He's pretty much limited to one deck at that point. The dragons deck is often a 5 color (Or Intent the dragon fella) and he slides right in there pretty well and works with what the deck wants to do pretty well. However every other deck doesn't seem to want him at all.
Animar has no interest in hard casting things
Wanderer wants to cascade into huge spells and more powerful walkers.
Riku cares far more about creatures and non-permanents.
Sarruk punches dragons so naturally he isn't a fan.
Like Kaya he seems like a fairly decent card but alas, he's pretty much homeless. Poor fella doesn't even have a coat.


Score: 33/100

Played in: Scion dragons, Intent Dragons, Dragons with 3 or more colors, Dragons. Not wyverns. That would be ridiculous.




53: Kiora, The Crashing Wave

Kiora is a pretty good walker in decks that want to play multiple lands. She fits very well in the Green Blue lands deck that want to hard cast huge threats like Vorniclex, Jin-Gixatias, Omniscience. Her plus also hurts voltron like decks that want to Alpha strike a player out of the game so if you land this lady she can help with that. One big problem is she comes in at a whoping two loyalty. That means that even if you plus her any other player can just kill her with an elephant token. Simic excels at putting huge threats on the board but getting a single elephant through the gates to take out Kiora isn't difficult. Also her ultimate reminds me of a better Ajani Goldmane. Granted the creature isn't as large and you get more but the problem is these big creatures have no evasion and will likely be chumped to oblivion. However explore is a fairly good card and two of those is nothing to sneeze at.

Score: 38/100

Played in: Lands.Dec. Simic big creatures



52: Chandra the Firebrand
I know a good amount of people who will question why she is this high on the list. "Chandra hasn't had a good version for most of her time"
I kinda disagree. While this is far from the best Chandra she can be one of the scariest cards your opponents can play in Izzet turns deck.
Imagine you're playing against someone and on turn 3 they land Chandra and kill a thing. She survives until the next turn with 4 loyalty. No big deal, you'll take her out when you can. Next turn your opponent uses her great minus two, double time warp....ugh...ok well she's back at 4 soon and they get two turns soon. Not the worst but now they have two turns and guess what they can easily get....walk the aeons...copied. And this game is over. Call me crazy but I think this Chandra is one of the scariest walkers Narset can play. Being able to abuse the extra turns is already great but in Narset the game is just over once Chandra has copied any of them.

Score: 45/100

Played in: Mono Red burn, Izzet turns, Narset



51: Liliana Vess

I debated back and forth on if Lili or Chandra should be at the top of todays list and I went with Lili Vess. I also wasn't sure if I was putting her on the list too early because the ability to tutor for cards and put them on top is very strong. But in the end I came back to a few points. The mana cost for a top of deck tutor is NOT five.
Granted it's possible to get 2 tutors before she dies and in that case you're probably gonna win the game or take yourself out of a big hole but the fact remains that 5 mana seems very steep for this.
Her plus works very well with what she wants to do and when she ultimates you can put yourself in a winning position very quickly. My problem with this is similar to Ajani, caller of the pride. It's not hard for opponents to mess this up for you by finding something like Homeward Path, any wrath, stifle (It's so funny when this happens), or any graveyard hate. She scores far higher than the others because she has a great tutor ability and her plus works well on stopping opponents from getting in her way.

Score: 48/100

Played in: Mono black Discard. Mass Graveyard antic decks.





Well that's todays list and it's only getting better from here. A lot of the walkers mentioned today have either a good amount of homes or are just waiting for the right card to come out to really shine.
How are you liking this new style of writing? The Snarky Insightful writing style is something I want to work on and find my balance in the future. Looking forward to having a good discussion with you all in the future.


DoomBlade, Signing out



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