Thursday, January 12, 2017

Ranking the Planeswalkers 6: 30-21

Man, when I was writing up todays article it brought up some good memories. These following cards are so much better than the last ten and while still not the best of the best they're all cards worth considering for decks. Anyway, enough of the Mr. Nice guy talk, lets get into why these guys aren't amazing and why they're good


30: Narset Transcendant

Narset could have easily made the last ten but just escaped due to her absurdly high starting loyalty. Four mana for Six loyalty is pretty much unheard of right now. The first two abilities are very relevant to what Narset wants to do, she wants to copy and draw cards but only instants and sorceries. I don't know why she doesn't want to copy planeswalkers or enchantments anymore but I guess that was the red of her previous card.
Anyway, you have a huge starting loyalty and two very relevant abilities. Not to mention, if she ults you better be able to take her out with creatures only because your deck is now crippled. A lot of the best decks in commander use none to few creatures so a Narset ult is bad news there.
The problem with Narset is while she works well with what you have she doesn't really help you at all when behind. She could maybe draw you a card or copy a wrath effect to clear the board for a bit but that's not super relevant in more competitive games. I think the top 30 is a good spot for Narset.

Score: 68/100
Played in: Heavy Control or Time walk decks (Grand Arbiter, Brago, Shu Yun)




29: Chandra, Flamecaller

Wow, Chandra has come a long way from Pinging players and creatures. Lets Start that if you want to Chandra can pretty much wipe the board of small to medium sized creatures and even have a little loyalty left over. Board wipes on a planeswalker are very rare and they're all super good. The plus is a great way to do some damage a turn (MORE THAN ONE).
And finally she doesn't have an ult but rather has access to three relevant modes right away. Her middle ability is my favorite since she can net you cards and you can play your relevant spells, dump the rest and get more cards. This is something mono red loves and works well in spellslinger decks as well. Of course the mana cost is a problem but 6 mana for a decent wipe is never a bad start. Much better than Ablaze in every way

Score: 70/100
Played in: Daretti, Izzet control, Mono Red,




28: Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
It's been a real long time since Sorin came up here. He's progressively gotten worse and worse as the years went on so lets look at a pretty good version finally.
Sorin protects himself well with a lifelink blocker and his ult isn't completely out of range. With it you can nuke and steal the biggest threats on board. If there isn't any threats then you can easily keep plusing him to make more blockers until there is something worth stealing. However that's not why Sorin is so high...
His minus two is so good. Your 1/1's become bigger and now your blockers are more relevant, not to mention every creature you play now and it's not difficult at all to get more than one emblem in a game. Pumping up your team to make sure you can kill even with the smallest token is fairly strong for four mana. And the ability to pump out tokens and add loyalty at the same time works well in token based decks.

Score: 70/100
Played in: Orzhov Stax/Token/Control




27: Koth of the Hammer
I originally had Koth much lower but as I was writing up his entry I found him much better than I gave him credit for.
Let's start that with his plus you can both net 1 mana or have a attacker for the turn. If you want to attack don't pick the mountain you played because it will have summoning sickness. His minus two is something red really needs and that's a massive ramp in mana. You can easily generate 5-8 mana off Koth and play some devastating spells for essentially free. That's just insane. The Ultimate can also be done right after an activation and will turn all your mountains into machine guns to kill opponents, take out creatures, or make attacking for opponents a massive pain. Also if you have mana to spare before your turn you can always kill a creature or do some nice damage to a player. However Koth works best in Mono Red and pretty much that since you don't want to clog the board with too many not mountains. But in those decks he's so good that I placed him higher than the other Mono planesalkers so far.
Score: 71/100
Played in: Mono Red, and pretty much all of them (Not Daretti)





26: Nahiri, the Harbinger

When you play Nahiri you need to have some massive Eldrazi or Blightsteel to work with her ultimate. This also works well since they can be shuffled back into the deck with her plus ability. Flavor win. The minus two is pretty sweet as well since it can take care of pretty much any problem as long as it's tapped. So dropping her and taking something out is relevant and she gains loyalty quickly so you can end the game with the ultimate fairly soon. Nahiri however isn't doing too much while plusing and most of the time you want to be taking out threats with her minus and making sure you don't lose instead of searching for one creature that can easily be killed/Exiled/Bounced or whatever before it attacks. Mostly because it takes a little bit to get to that ultimate so it's fairly easy to hose. If you can get it off I can argue you're gonna win that game anyway. Also she doesn't do too much that Boros wants since she doesn't make attacking any better. I think she works better in decks with access to blue

Score: 71/100
Played in: Jeskai control or 4 color control maybe. Needs a finisher


25 Nissa, Worldwaker

Nissa cost pretty much one mana when she lands. That's sweet. The untapping of so much mana can make it so the next turn you can play massive threats. I placed this higher than Koth because green has no problem reaching five mana and has bigger threats than red (Cratorhoof, Terastodon, etc). This ability alone is why Nissa is so high as generating this much mana early and often while increasing your loyalty is very strong. The other two abilities make your lands into creatures. This is not something you want to do when Green is fairly weak against wraths already. Unless you can kill the whole table with the lands in one go I don't recommend using Nissa for much more than her middle ability. But what an Ability that is.

Score: 71/100
Played in: Mono Green stompy





24: Liliana, Hertical Healer
I fucking love this card. It's so god damn cool...but biased aside it's fairly decent. Discard into reanimation while slowing down opponents is sweet. Also she gets a token when you flip her so you can protect her even easier. Her Ultimate pretty much wins the game but like I said with Narset not many people play that many creatures in more competitive groups so it's not viable there. She's not quite another walker that's coming up later but this Lili has some good slots in decks.

Score: 73/100
Played in: Mono Black everything and some stax



23: Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Even the best Chandra can't crack the top twenty. Oh well, at this rate Chandra in 4 years will be unbeatable. She's come a long away. Anyway we have a walker that can both damage players (ALL of them at the same time) but you could also play the card if you want and that's the plus, naturally better than Pyromaster. The other plus ability adds mana to your pool so you can  play 7 drops the following turn or just a few more things to protect her. She also kills creatures when she lands, the three abilities give chandra the whole package of protection, ramp, and card draw AND on top of that you will likely win the game with that ultimate being able to nuke creatures for every spell and players when you want to end the game. While all of these abilities are good by themselves the top twenty walkers all have much more to offer so I feel like just outside of it is a good slot for her

Score: 74/100
Played in: Control, aggro, ramp



22: Jace Belern
Party Jace...well no. I think using this guy solely to draw three cards is far better than helping out opponents. Sure you could plus him when he's at one and it's not a big deal if you think he will live longer but it's really the second ability that excels him so high. That super low cmc puts him over the edge on other walkers that are mostly used for card draw like Pyromaster and the fact that he's abuseable with Sun titan gives him some more edge. I don't think he's much better than the other cards mentioned so far but just enough to get passed the others by a hair. The incremental card draw can help you excel past opponents by itself.

Also the ultimate is trash

Score: 74/100

Played in: Mono blue and two color decks that want more draw



21: Venser, the Sojourner
And the last entry for today was actually fairly popular for guesses in the top ten. A lot of people think that ultimates make a walker and that is not true. Granted that ultimate will win you the game. It's pretty much over once you get there however against three competent players it shouldn't be happening unless you're already gonna win that game, lets look at the other abilities. The plus is needed in blink decks as you can abuse tons of great creatures, you can reset a mana vault so you have more mana next turn, or bounce a walker who's close to death. Plenty of good use and if you bounce a creature you have someone who can block after attacking, fairly sweet but it's also dependent on you having anything worth while to begin with.
The minus also needs you to have something since it makes your creatures unblockable. Great for voltron or massive armies to take out someone but the need for other cards on board and opponents never letting you ult kept him just out of the top twenty for me.
Score: 76/100
Played in: Blink, Voltron, Superfriends




Well that's our rankings for today. Any you're surprised to see?  Any you thought you'd see by now?
Let me know in the comments and lets start a discussion.


Also this is the last entry before my giveaway here closes
http://diestodoomblade.blogspot.com/2017/01/ranking-planeswalkers-giveaway.html


I'm not posting the 20-11 walkers as my next entry so you guys can have a little more time to think and post your thoughts but when it is uploaded I will not take anymore entries.

These are the remaining walkers:
Dack Fayden
Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
Daretti, scrap savant
Elspeth, knight-Errant
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
Garruk Wildspeaker
Garruk, Primal hunter
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Jace, the mind sculptor
Karn Liberated
Liliana of the veil
Nissa, Vital Force
Sorin Markov
Tamiyo, the moon sage
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
Tezeret, the seeker
Tezzeret, Agent of bolas
Ugin, the Spirit dragon
Xenagos, the reveler



Good luck and thanks for the support!



If you want to support the blog please visit my Patreon for more. Every little bit helps a ton and allows me to make more content for you guys in the future https://www.patreon.com/diestodoomblade

4 comments:

  1. I will admit to being one of those people that expect3d Venser to be higher.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Koth's animate ability does not give you a blocker.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm betting number one is Dack Fayden, its not the raw power level of Elspeth or Tezzeret but it's such a small investment for two useful strong abilities.

    ReplyDelete