2. Can the walker defend himself?
No, she cannot. All of her abilities are not able to effect the board in some way.
That being said she does have 6 starting loyalty and immediately goes up to 7 with her plus ability. Even double Lightning Bolt is not enough kill her this way.
I more or less agree with the rest of your evaluation, but this point needs some adjustment.
7 loyalty IS a form of defense. So the answer to this point should be "Yes, she can." Think Lilly can defend herself from a Goyf and 2 Spirit tokens? Or a double Bolt or Bolt/Electrolyze combo? Hell, not even JTMS does that. 7 loyalty is an absolutely batty starting loyalty on a 4 mana planeswalker. There is a chance I'm overvaluing it, but if my experience with Ashiok is any indication, I don't think I am. And I definitely think that even if I am overvaluing it, other people are way, way undervaluing it.
EDIT: To be clear, you acknowledge these points, but I don't think you do so enough; the answer to the "does she defend herself" question is definitely "Yes", not "No" because she lacks built-in removal/bounce/tap effects.
If you comparison is only base on the CA alone, yes she is better than Jace AoT. This is pretty obvious from the text description shown on the cards.
That's what I was comparing because that was the initial premise: that she might not be better as a CA engine than AoT. It isn't self-evident.
They're not really aiming to do the same things beyond that, so I don't think one is a direct replacement for the other. I *do* think Narset is the better card for traditional control.
Yes I agree. It seems to me that she can provide Control decks a good CA, which is what Control deck misses for a long time. My only concern is against various aggro or combo decks, her CA is not good enough to keep Control decks alive (stop your opponent) after turn 4...
I think Narset would be easily playable if the +1 was noncreature cards instead of noncreature nonland cards. Since it isn't, I am less sure. She needs to be better than Jace, Architect of Thought, which I think she is. 6 loyalty is a lot and giving rebound to removal spells (and draw spells if Modern had any good draw spells) is great. Her +1 is decent, but I am not sure that I want to be using a 4-drop to draw a card every other turn even in the perfect deck. I think the rebound and high loyalty make up for that though.
One more thing that is worth consideration is that she promotes holding back fetchlands. If you are trying to find spells but see a land on top of your deck with the +1, you can shuffle it back in and hope to draw something more useful.
Yes I agree. It seems to me that she can provide Control decks a good CA, which is what Control deck misses for a long time. My only concern is against various aggro or combo decks, her CA is not good enough to keep Control decks alive (stop your opponent) after turn 4...
I mean, that's not why you'd play her though. She's not a Wrath of God or a counterspell, she's a resilient card advantage engine that, at the very worst, says "Gain 7 life" if shes dealt with. You hopefully play other cards in your control deck that will stop your opponent after turn 4. She just helps you draw into them when you can find an opening to throw this down.
Against aggro for example, you'll probably play her on T5 most of the time, after spending removal or a sweeper on T4, Pathing, Dismembering, or Murderous Cutting whatever they played last turn with your one remaining mana. Now you have another Path on the rebound to basically timewalk them from playing creatures. The best part of this scenario is that it's pretty reasonable.
2. Can the walker defend himself?
No, she cannot. All of her abilities are not able to effect the board in some way.
That being said she does have 6 starting loyalty and immediately goes up to 7 with her plus ability. Even double Lightning Bolt is not enough kill her this way.
I more or less agree with the rest of your evaluation, but this point needs some adjustment.
7 loyalty IS a form of defense. So the answer to this point should be "Yes, she can." Think Lilly can defend herself from a Goyf and 2 Spirit tokens? Or a double Bolt or Bolt/Electrolyze combo? Hell, not even JTMS does that. 7 loyalty is an absolutely batty starting loyalty on a 4 mana planeswalker. There is a chance I'm overvaluing it, but if my experience with Ashiok is any indication, I don't think I am. And I definitely think that even if I am overvaluing it, other people are way, way undervaluing it.
EDIT: To be clear, you acknowledge these points, but I don't think you do so enough; the answer to the "does she defend herself" question is definitely "Yes", not "No" because she lacks built-in removal/bounce/tap effects.
I agree. I have been playing a ton of Ashiok in standard and 5 loyalty is a ton, especially in removal heavy decks (which control is forced to be right now). A starting 7 loyalty is insane... and even 4, if you have mana to use her rebound right away, is not bad at all. It means its going to be cost them 2 cards to kill her (double bolt etc) and you got a 3 for 2 (rebounding something) so it means you end up ahead already.
2. Can the walker defend himself?
No, she cannot. All of her abilities are not able to effect the board in some way.
That being said she does have 6 starting loyalty and immediately goes up to 7 with her plus ability. Even double Lightning Bolt is not enough kill her this way.
I more or less agree with the rest of your evaluation, but this point needs some adjustment.
7 loyalty IS a form of defense. So the answer to this point should be "Yes, she can." Think Lilly can defend herself from a Goyf and 2 Spirit tokens? Or a double Bolt or Bolt/Electrolyze combo? Hell, not even JTMS does that. 7 loyalty is an absolutely batty starting loyalty on a 4 mana planeswalker. There is a chance I'm overvaluing it, but if my experience with Ashiok is any indication, I don't think I am. And I definitely think that even if I am overvaluing it, other people are way, way undervaluing it.
EDIT: To be clear, you acknowledge these points, but I don't think you do so enough; the answer to the "does she defend herself" question is definitely "Yes", not "No" because she lacks built-in removal/bounce/tap effects.
This is definitely a point of discussion and I can understand your point of view. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver comes to mind.
Im of the school of thought that a board-effecting ability is part of a good planeswalker. Liliana does this, Jace does this, Karn does this, Ajani does this, all versions of Elspeth immediately can create blockers.
Narset clearly fails this. If you want to effect the board in some way to cannot do that with her alone.
Even Ashiok has a board-effecting ability.
Granted this has nothing to do with her being able to protect herself but it is related and somewhat jarring.
Her +1 is somewhat lack luster, but doubling removal spells and then digging for more is pretty good. My big problems with her are that she doesn't play well with counterspells and can't help you hit lands. Jace AoT is a better digger and will always get you spells or lands (whichever you need more). The same cannot be said of Narset. She cannot make your land drops, she cannot guarantee CA, she can't even win the game directly like Jace can.
Make no mistake, I do think she's better in the current Esper/Jeskai control builds than Jace is, but I don't think she does enough to make those builds good enough to see real play. She doesn't solve their fundamental problems, unless there's some kind of synergy that can break her rebound ability.
There's a lot of evaluation that needs to go into Narset before she's considered playable, but I will say this off the bat:
An effective 7 starting loyalty is a LOT of starting loyalty. Ashiok protected itself nicely at 5 effective starting loyalty, and Narset has 2 more than that. 7 is also kind of a magic number for me here because it means that Rhino/Tas/AverageGoyf plus two Souls tokens can't kill her.
That said, we must also consider the fact that Narset has no meaningful effect on the board the turn you play her, and might not even affect the board until TWO turns after you play her (if you play her on turn 4).
I'm rather convinced Narset is bull*****/10 control deck centerpiece.
I'm kinda struggling to convey why I feel so in words, but I'm convinced this is the mistake card of DTK.
She is playable. If you watched the last SCG touri, you could see people playing jace into creatures, +1 to survive the attack, than using removal to stablize. Its not quite the same, but she more or less does that better.
Her protection is stuff like -2. Doing that to a dismember or path is protection. Doing it to a board wipe spell ensures you 2 turns of no attacks. Her +1 is value in a contrrol deck, like domri in zoo. Cept domri demands 28+ creature. In control? You can EASALLY hit 28 +. FREAKIN' BATTERSKULL IS NOT A CREATURE.
Using her in an esper deck, you have souls. Hell, you got 6 souls outta it if you really want it. I can see an esper deck (like the one in japan) gaining huge off this. What I really wanna see is a walker deck with it. I think esper or american can pull that off now. Narset can be used as glue there.
She only doesn't have a way to protect herself because you're reading the card too literally. She won't be played in a deck without a way to dramatically impact the board immediately. This could be through a T5-play with rebounded removal, a T5 play following a wrath, or a T4 play into 4-5 power with a wrath or removal in hand to rebound next turn, giving you two turns where the opponent can't play creatures.
Now I do make an assumption: you're holding some kind of impactful removal. Because if you're control and you have no removal against aggro, there isn't a single planeswalker that will save you against the aggro decks in their respective formats. But that's not the point of planeswalkers, especially in control. People aren't playing Jace for his sweet bounce ability. They play him to brainstorm and draw cards because the usual problem control has is that they're great at 1 for 1ing but against stuff like Rhino and Finks, you'll eventually get out valued. Even Liliana is a mediocre answer against a good aggro start. T3 Liliana into their T1 birds fueled hand dump is not that good.
Tarset prevents you from getting gassed. She protects herself by giving you, the control player whose deck is mono impactful spells, the tools to help protect her.
Doesn't impact the board, but she can help give you an incredible CA engine. If you slap her down on an empty board, the +1 is never irrelevant.
The -2 has more implications than people are giving credit for. You -2, cast Supreme Verdict. All creatures are now dead. What that also means, is the opponent can't put any threats on the board next turn without fear of Verdict hitting their creatures again. This gives you a free turn to untap, and extra draw step and the ability to further set up your hand to control the game. There's a lot of potentially delicious applications for her -2 ability.
I do wish her -2 wasn't an "until EOT" but just next spell period. This would allow you the ability to throw something down on your oppponent's turn and have it rebound anyway. But regardless, its a very good ability in a controlled board state.
Narset isn't amazing by any means, but I do think she can see fringe play in modern.
Narset seem very good in a Superfriends list. Also don't forget that the synergy with flashback. T3 Lingering Souls, T4 Narset, T5 Rebound souls flashback could defend her pretty well.
However I don't think she will be good in draw-go control deck. She doesn't draw cards reliably and her -2 doesn't work well with instants, especially counterspells.
Hold on. Does giving flashback Rebound do what I think it does? Do you exile it just like flashback wants and then cast it from exile again, which allows you to flash it back again?
Narset seem very good in a Superfriends list. Also don't forget that the synergy with flashback. T3 Lingering Souls, T4 Narset, T5 Rebound souls flashback could defend her pretty well.
Narset seem very good in a Superfriends list. Also don't forget that the synergy with flashback. T3 Lingering Souls, T4 Narset, T5 Rebound souls flashback could defend her pretty well.
However I don't think she will be good in draw-go control deck. She doesn't draw cards reliably and her -2 doesn't work well with instants, especially counterspells.
Hold on. Does giving flashback Rebound do what I think it does? Do you exile it just like flashback wants and then cast it from exile again, which allows you to flash it back again?
Remember that Narset's ability only works when the spell is cast from your hand.
She is playable. If you watched the last SCG touri, you could see people playing jace into creatures, +1 to survive the attack, than using removal to stablize. Its not quite the same, but she more or less does that better.
Her protection is stuff like -2. Doing that to a dismember or path is protection. Doing it to a board wipe spell ensures you 2 turns of no attacks. Her +1 is value in a contrrol deck, like domri in zoo. Cept domri demands 28+ creature. In control? You can EASALLY hit 28 +. FREAKIN' BATTERSKULL IS NOT A CREATURE.
Using her in an esper deck, you have souls. Hell, you got 6 souls outta it if you really want it. I can see an esper deck (like the one in japan) gaining huge off this. What I really wanna see is a walker deck with it. I think esper or american can pull that off now. Narset can be used as glue there.
Esper Superfriends sounds interesting.
Tamiyo, Jace AoT, Narset, Ashiok (I think its kind of bad, but its there I guess), Lilly, Sorin, etc.
The deck certainly exists, but time will tell if it will be any good or if it will be jank.
There's a lot of evaluation that needs to go into Narset before she's considered playable, but I will say this off the bat:
An effective 7 starting loyalty is a LOT of starting loyalty. Ashiok protected itself nicely at 5 effective starting loyalty, and Narset has 2 more than that. 7 is also kind of a magic number for me here because it means that Rhino/Tas/AverageGoyf plus two Souls tokens can't kill her.
That said, we must also consider the fact that Narset has no meaningful effect on the board the turn you play her, and might not even affect the board until TWO turns after you play her (if you play her on turn 4).
I'm rather convinced Narset is bull*****/10 control deck centerpiece.
I'm kinda struggling to convey why I feel so in words, but I'm convinced this is the mistake card of DTK.
There's a lot of evaluation that needs to go into Narset before she's considered playable, but I will say this off the bat:
An effective 7 starting loyalty is a LOT of starting loyalty. Ashiok protected itself nicely at 5 effective starting loyalty, and Narset has 2 more than that. 7 is also kind of a magic number for me here because it means that Rhino/Tas/AverageGoyf plus two Souls tokens can't kill her.
That said, we must also consider the fact that Narset has no meaningful effect on the board the turn you play her, and might not even affect the board until TWO turns after you play her (if you play her on turn 4).
I'm rather convinced Narset is bull*****/10 control deck centerpiece.
I'm kinda struggling to convey why I feel so in words, but I'm convinced this is the mistake card of DTK.
Sorry but I am confused.
Do you mean she is too good or that she is bad?
The former.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong and that it's just a winmore card in the end, though.
I play a UW GoST deck that is tempo/control and I am honestly not even thinking about putting Narset in. She just doesn't do enough to warrant a spot.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
she seems like the new best 4 cmc pw ahead of elsepth. she id what control needed. a way to dominate the lategame against junk jund etc. i think people here are underrating her. really high loyalty is huge.
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
I more or less agree with the rest of your evaluation, but this point needs some adjustment.
7 loyalty IS a form of defense. So the answer to this point should be "Yes, she can." Think Lilly can defend herself from a Goyf and 2 Spirit tokens? Or a double Bolt or Bolt/Electrolyze combo? Hell, not even JTMS does that. 7 loyalty is an absolutely batty starting loyalty on a 4 mana planeswalker. There is a chance I'm overvaluing it, but if my experience with Ashiok is any indication, I don't think I am. And I definitely think that even if I am overvaluing it, other people are way, way undervaluing it.
EDIT: To be clear, you acknowledge these points, but I don't think you do so enough; the answer to the "does she defend herself" question is definitely "Yes", not "No" because she lacks built-in removal/bounce/tap effects.
Yes I agree. It seems to me that she can provide Control decks a good CA, which is what Control deck misses for a long time. My only concern is against various aggro or combo decks, her CA is not good enough to keep Control decks alive (stop your opponent) after turn 4...
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
One more thing that is worth consideration is that she promotes holding back fetchlands. If you are trying to find spells but see a land on top of your deck with the +1, you can shuffle it back in and hope to draw something more useful.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I mean, that's not why you'd play her though. She's not a Wrath of God or a counterspell, she's a resilient card advantage engine that, at the very worst, says "Gain 7 life" if shes dealt with. You hopefully play other cards in your control deck that will stop your opponent after turn 4. She just helps you draw into them when you can find an opening to throw this down.
Against aggro for example, you'll probably play her on T5 most of the time, after spending removal or a sweeper on T4, Pathing, Dismembering, or Murderous Cutting whatever they played last turn with your one remaining mana. Now you have another Path on the rebound to basically timewalk them from playing creatures. The best part of this scenario is that it's pretty reasonable.
Splintertwin (?)
I agree. I have been playing a ton of Ashiok in standard and 5 loyalty is a ton, especially in removal heavy decks (which control is forced to be right now). A starting 7 loyalty is insane... and even 4, if you have mana to use her rebound right away, is not bad at all. It means its going to be cost them 2 cards to kill her (double bolt etc) and you got a 3 for 2 (rebounding something) so it means you end up ahead already.
This is definitely a point of discussion and I can understand your point of view. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver comes to mind.
Im of the school of thought that a board-effecting ability is part of a good planeswalker. Liliana does this, Jace does this, Karn does this, Ajani does this, all versions of Elspeth immediately can create blockers.
Narset clearly fails this. If you want to effect the board in some way to cannot do that with her alone.
Even Ashiok has a board-effecting ability.
Granted this has nothing to do with her being able to protect herself but it is related and somewhat jarring.
Make no mistake, I do think she's better in the current Esper/Jeskai control builds than Jace is, but I don't think she does enough to make those builds good enough to see real play. She doesn't solve their fundamental problems, unless there's some kind of synergy that can break her rebound ability.
I wouldn't easily dismiss her. I'd guess she's strong. I'd certainly want to test her in a flex spot for UW tron. And I believe that says a lot.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
I'm rather convinced Narset is bull*****/10 control deck centerpiece.
I'm kinda struggling to convey why I feel so in words, but I'm convinced this is the mistake card of DTK.
Her protection is stuff like -2. Doing that to a dismember or path is protection. Doing it to a board wipe spell ensures you 2 turns of no attacks. Her +1 is value in a contrrol deck, like domri in zoo. Cept domri demands 28+ creature. In control? You can EASALLY hit 28 +. FREAKIN' BATTERSKULL IS NOT A CREATURE.
Using her in an esper deck, you have souls. Hell, you got 6 souls outta it if you really want it. I can see an esper deck (like the one in japan) gaining huge off this. What I really wanna see is a walker deck with it. I think esper or american can pull that off now. Narset can be used as glue there.
Now I do make an assumption: you're holding some kind of impactful removal. Because if you're control and you have no removal against aggro, there isn't a single planeswalker that will save you against the aggro decks in their respective formats. But that's not the point of planeswalkers, especially in control. People aren't playing Jace for his sweet bounce ability. They play him to brainstorm and draw cards because the usual problem control has is that they're great at 1 for 1ing but against stuff like Rhino and Finks, you'll eventually get out valued. Even Liliana is a mediocre answer against a good aggro start. T3 Liliana into their T1 birds fueled hand dump is not that good.
Tarset prevents you from getting gassed. She protects herself by giving you, the control player whose deck is mono impactful spells, the tools to help protect her.
EDIT: Hear, hear Lantern!
Splintertwin (?)
Doesn't impact the board, but she can help give you an incredible CA engine. If you slap her down on an empty board, the +1 is never irrelevant.
The -2 has more implications than people are giving credit for. You -2, cast Supreme Verdict. All creatures are now dead. What that also means, is the opponent can't put any threats on the board next turn without fear of Verdict hitting their creatures again. This gives you a free turn to untap, and extra draw step and the ability to further set up your hand to control the game. There's a lot of potentially delicious applications for her -2 ability.
I do wish her -2 wasn't an "until EOT" but just next spell period. This would allow you the ability to throw something down on your oppponent's turn and have it rebound anyway. But regardless, its a very good ability in a controlled board state.
Narset isn't amazing by any means, but I do think she can see fringe play in modern.
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
Hold on. Does giving flashback Rebound do what I think it does? Do you exile it just like flashback wants and then cast it from exile again, which allows you to flash it back again?
Edit: Never mind, rebound is only from hand.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Her rebound doesn't work with flashback
Remember that Narset's ability only works when the spell is cast from your hand.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Esper Superfriends sounds interesting.
Tamiyo, Jace AoT, Narset, Ashiok (I think its kind of bad, but its there I guess), Lilly, Sorin, etc.
The deck certainly exists, but time will tell if it will be any good or if it will be jank.
Sorry but I am confused.
Do you mean she is too good or that she is bad?
The former.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong and that it's just a winmore card in the end, though.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Hide behind Wall of Omens and Wall of Denial while beating face with Celestial Colonnade.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas