Planeswalkers are perennially difficult to evaluate, having 37 in one go and new static/triggered abilities on them is not going to make things any easier. I think we'll have to wait and see for some of them, but it is obvious that Mr. Rade should be close to a slam-dunk at 450, at least.
I like Kiora a lot. She gets a whopping seven activations if she isn't getting hit, which isn't shabby. the untaps archetype is real in my cube, and I think she's great there (Seeker of Skybreak, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Instill Energy etc). Being extremely splashable helps too, and the static ability is just gravy. She's perfect for my cube. Not for most, but definitely for mine.
I've updated the OP, but for reference, here are the day's new planeswalkers:
Also Angrath, who looks like this:
Angrath, Captain of Chaos2(B/R)(B/R)
Creatures you control have menace
-2: Amass 2
{{5}}
I think Kiora's the only really playable one. If there wasn't such a glut of four mana walkers in gruul, Samut wouldn't be bad. Angrath isn't terrible, but he's not great either. Teyo is the most cubeable True Believer variant if that matters to anybody. The Wanderer seems too sideboardy for basically any cube, but it's great(and splashable) in a Pestilence/ Pyrohemia deck which counts for something. Six mana pretty much takes Kaya out of the running, and missing shroud is a failure in my opinon.
Edit: Added Davriel. The Rack isn't really an archetype in cube. Not much to see here.
Also, Vivien. Flash for creatures is sweet. The card draw isn't bad. The mana cost is pretty easy to handle. Doesn't protect itself very well, but it's only three mana. Seems playable if not world shattering.
I like the new Vivian but at 3 mana in my green decks I want to be developing my board state a bit more. I don’t think she’s better than 3cmc Nissa but she’s certainly not embarrassing.
I mean the new Vivien is a house against control. A recurrent source of card advantage that enables you to work around counter spells. Importantly, if she gets removed, you still get access to those face down creatures. Playing this t2 off a dork is a pretty big deal.
Granted, not sure if she's better than our existing 3 cmc options in green. But I definitely think she has potential and I'll test her. I don't really like any of the uncommon walkers. Maybe Kiora is good enough, idk.
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I think Kiora is solid. As a floor of ramping at least +1 on the next turn is not bad, especially since even if you miss your land drop you should have a 4 drop which will give you an extra card.
seems busted with Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary Gaea's Cradle Tolarian Academy
Coalition relic (or other rocks that tap for multiple, but you can charge 2x with relic) ancient tomb library of Alexandria gets potentially more busted, not that you should lose if you have it in play
wildfire decks get better as well since they play creatures that benefit from her card draw upon entering, and since the deck runs a lot of rocks it should help you ramp up to casting the key cards of the deck.
She is also so easy to cast, 2/5 mono colored decks can cast her, 7/10 2 color decks can cast her (and probably more if you include light splashes).
Edited: wrote a paragraph earlier and had to leave.
Basically a bad Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Not much of a cube card. Nevertheless, it isn't bad support for a counters matter archetype. Proliferation is already good in the archetype, so planeswalkers that support it are handy, and it makes decent use of existing +1/+1 counters.
Not sure if a meta discussion is appropriate in this thread, but I can't help but wonder if some of the more powerful planeswalkers deserve their own SCD thread in addition to this thread?
For anyone scrolling through this forum in the future, it organizes the discussion.
Not sure if a meta discussion is appropriate in this thread, but I can't help but wonder if some of the more powerful planeswalkers deserve their own SCD thread in addition to this thread?
For anyone scrolling through this forum in the future, it organizes the discussion.
I definitely agree. I wasn't trying to stop that.
Edit: I created threads for all the ones that seemed most mainstream playable to me.
She's good, but she's not close to mainstream playable in rare-having lists, much like Angrath. The suite of abilities is really pretty respectable: the -X is very solid repeatable removal that acts as a decent deterrent to the opponent. First strike makes your attacks really annoying, and the equipment text is nice, but doesn't really manage to be serious archetype support. Hybrid mana is just great, and if I were going to add this, that would be the main reason. It's all good, but it adds up to mostly goodstuff, and it's never going to compete with mythic goodstuff planeswalkers like Nahiri, the Harbinger or Ajani Vengeant.
Kasmina is our first mono-blue uncommon walker. She's sorta both halves of Monastery siege plus a board presence, but not as good as either half of the original card. It's a noncreature that makes a board presence for spellslinger strategies, and it has some graveyard synergy (and Wizard synergy if that matters). All in all the card is not the greatest, but like most of these planeswalkers, I could see a cube that wants it. Monastery Siege is doing good work in my cube, so I think I'll keep it at the expense of this card, but this looks completely playable at my power level. EDIT: I like this card better now than when I first wrote this. She does a ton.
EDIT: I added Kasmina through edit to avoid double-posting.
Saheeli is truly sublime, but there's already a thread for her. She's easily one of the best planeswalkers here for cube, and that's saying something.
Dovin is definitely something. 2(W/U) is ridiculously easy to cast. His biggest problem is that he's super match-up dependent. Some decks simply won't care about him, but others will be badly crippled. He's definitely powerful, but he doesn't help control against an aggro deck that goes wide, which is control's worst nightmare. Nevertheless in mid-range matchups, he can be a huge headache. The main reason to run him is that he can be played in almost any deck. A card like that is unlikely to go late.
Jaya is not any kind of staple, but I play Embermaw Hellion, and it's an easy ability to underestimate. It's especially good with cards like Arc Lightning. Still not close to a mainstream card though.
Almost all of these planeswalkers look playable in a lower-power environment. The only real and true stinker looks like Arlin to me. Many of them also support kinda rarely supported archetypes. Davriel for example looks like a bad mind rot, but could become an indispensable part of a Waste Not archetype.
I could even see a cube that plays all ten of the hybrid uncommon walkers. Vraska is a little weak, but in a planeswalker-heavy environment, she picks up value. It would make sense to do this for example in a Ravnica themed cube. The hybrid costs could really help to ease the burden on a large guild section. We haven't seen BU or GW yet, but they're probably good considering the rest of the cycle.
As I have said before, I'm tired of samey goodstuff mythic planeswalkers, and I love these cards. I can see them cards replacing some of the mythic ones that I have, and for the first time, I don't actually mind increasing my planeswalker density. Tons of these cards are just fabulous in an environment like mine, and at least half of them are absolutely playable.
Edit: Adding Tamiyo.
She's kinda weaker than most of these for cube. 2GU for an Eternal Witness that might get a second trigger is not terrible, but it's not great either. The static ability is quite narrow, and the +1 basically exists to feed a second Regrowth. If you get the second Regrowth, the card is pretty good (but not amazing), but otherwise it's not great. It's nice as a grave support card for GU, but it's one of the less playable walkers here as I see it. She doesn't look particularly better than the 2GU Kioras.
Meh. It's a planeswalker deck card, and those tend to be pretty useless. This is that.
Huatli, Sun's Heart 2(G/W)
Legendary Planeswalker - Huatli (U)
Each creature you control assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power
-3: You gain life equal to the greatest toughness among creatures you control.
{7}
Huatli is another iteration of the Doran effect. Again, that's not something you need in most cubes, but if you are interested in utilizing the toughness-matters/ defenders archetype, you probably want her. 2(G/W) makes her really easy to throw into any deck that favors toughness, but she's not going to be worth the slot in at least 65% of decks, which is a pretty big strike against her. I kinda wish the Doran ability were more unique, but having additional iterations is what you need to make it an archetype in cube. I have an extremely minor defenders/ toughness-matters subtheme, but I'm not looking to make it much bigger. Still I'm a sucker for cards like this. More often than not, it's better to not activate the ability, but when you do activate it, it'll be for a pretty large life swing.
Boy howdy!! It's good mill, great graveyard hate, and great tutor/fetch hate. What a weird combination. Anybody who supports a mill subtheme knows that graveyard hate is extremely important. For example, in a recent draft my mill deck was thrashed by a Muldrotha graveyard deck, and I ended up boarding out my mill cards. Ashiok would naturally have been a high pick for the deck and would have been a silver bullet in that nasty match-up. It's also fun that you can mill yourself while nuking other graves. The main problem is that it has zero board interaction. But some people will see that as a reason to ignore Ashiok, which can get problematic for them.
That's it for the hybrid uncommons. I'm not disappointed.
Nobody cares about this. Every single uncommon walker is better than this. With 36 walkers, one buy-a-box, and two planeswalker decks, I guess somebody had to be 39th place.
Sarkhan and Ugin both have SCD threads, so I'll leave them alone.
I don’t think this Ashiok’s a card in cube. Old Ashiok threatens to win by ticking up fast for creatures or Wit’s End. This just kind of sits there, threatening a turn 14 kill - if it doesn’t take any damage beforehand.
Maybe on top of the other Ashiok or ToS it could be a wincon, but that’s a narrow card slot.
You may be right on Ashiok: zero board interaction is not a lot of board interaction. I play Sphinx's Tutelage, and it's a decent card, but one of the main upsides to it is that it requires enchantment removal to stop the inevitability, whereas planeswalkers are easy to target. It also compares unfavorably to the original Ashiok in a few ways. This is probably not a card for many cubes, even peasant cubes, but I like it for mine specifically.
A graveyard hating mill engine can be a big deal if you support a mill subtheme alongside a heavy graveyard theme like I do. Hybrid mana also makes it a sweet card to have on the sideboard for any deck that can cast 1UU or 1BB. If you come up against a graveyard deck, or a deck with a tutor engine (like Sisay or Pod), you'll be happy to board it in. I like that I can use a slot on a dedicated mill card that also has useful sideboard tech, especially since I love having sideboard cards but hate dedicating slots to them.
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My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Also Angrath, who looks like this:
Angrath, Captain of Chaos 2(B/R)(B/R)
Creatures you control have menace
-2: Amass 2
{{5}}
I think Kiora's the only really playable one. If there wasn't such a glut of four mana walkers in gruul, Samut wouldn't be bad. Angrath isn't terrible, but he's not great either. Teyo is the most cubeable True Believer variant if that matters to anybody. The Wanderer seems too sideboardy for basically any cube, but it's great(and splashable) in a Pestilence/ Pyrohemia deck which counts for something. Six mana pretty much takes Kaya out of the running, and missing shroud is a failure in my opinon.
Edit: Added Davriel. The Rack isn't really an archetype in cube. Not much to see here.
Also, Vivien. Flash for creatures is sweet. The card draw isn't bad. The mana cost is pretty easy to handle. Doesn't protect itself very well, but it's only three mana. Seems playable if not world shattering.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Granted, not sure if she's better than our existing 3 cmc options in green. But I definitely think she has potential and I'll test her. I don't really like any of the uncommon walkers. Maybe Kiora is good enough, idk.
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
seems busted with
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Gaea's Cradle
Tolarian Academy
Coalition relic (or other rocks that tap for multiple, but you can charge 2x with relic)
ancient tomb
library of Alexandria gets potentially more busted, not that you should lose if you have it in play
You can also get good use out of
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy flip quicker and get more digging potential
enclave cryptologist.
goblin welder.
hangarback walker
mimic vat,
man lands you can swing with, untap the land, and use it to block on your turn if needed.
Dance of the Dead,
Splinter twin,
many of the utility lands,
Mother of ruins
Erratic portal / Crystal shard get way better.
Splinter twin you can essentially put 2 createures into play each turn, and potentially draw 2 cards which should be enough to put you over the edge.
Geist of Saint Trafts angel will now draw you a card every turn.
I think Eureka get's a lot better as well
wildfire decks get better as well since they play creatures that benefit from her card draw upon entering, and since the deck runs a lot of rocks it should help you ramp up to casting the key cards of the deck.
She is also so easy to cast, 2/5 mono colored decks can cast her, 7/10 2 color decks can cast her (and probably more if you include light splashes).
Edited: wrote a paragraph earlier and had to leave.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
Basically a bad Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Not much of a cube card. Nevertheless, it isn't bad support for a counters matter archetype. Proliferation is already good in the archetype, so planeswalkers that support it are handy, and it makes decent use of existing +1/+1 counters.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
For anyone scrolling through this forum in the future, it organizes the discussion.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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I definitely agree. I wasn't trying to stop that.
Edit: I created threads for all the ones that seemed most mainstream playable to me.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
She's good, but she's not close to mainstream playable in rare-having lists, much like Angrath. The suite of abilities is really pretty respectable: the -X is very solid repeatable removal that acts as a decent deterrent to the opponent. First strike makes your attacks really annoying, and the equipment text is nice, but doesn't really manage to be serious archetype support. Hybrid mana is just great, and if I were going to add this, that would be the main reason. It's all good, but it adds up to mostly goodstuff, and it's never going to compete with mythic goodstuff planeswalkers like Nahiri, the Harbinger or Ajani Vengeant.
Kasmina is our first mono-blue uncommon walker. She's sorta both halves of Monastery siege plus a board presence, but not as good as either half of the original card. It's a noncreature that makes a board presence for spellslinger strategies, and it has some graveyard synergy (and Wizard synergy if that matters). All in all the card is not the greatest, but like most of these planeswalkers, I could see a cube that wants it. Monastery Siege is doing good work in my cube, so I think I'll keep it at the expense of this card, but this looks completely playable at my power level. EDIT: I like this card better now than when I first wrote this. She does a ton.
EDIT: I added Kasmina through edit to avoid double-posting.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Saheeli is truly sublime, but there's already a thread for her. She's easily one of the best planeswalkers here for cube, and that's saying something.
Dovin is definitely something. 2(W/U) is ridiculously easy to cast. His biggest problem is that he's super match-up dependent. Some decks simply won't care about him, but others will be badly crippled. He's definitely powerful, but he doesn't help control against an aggro deck that goes wide, which is control's worst nightmare. Nevertheless in mid-range matchups, he can be a huge headache. The main reason to run him is that he can be played in almost any deck. A card like that is unlikely to go late.
Jaya is not any kind of staple, but I play Embermaw Hellion, and it's an easy ability to underestimate. It's especially good with cards like Arc Lightning. Still not close to a mainstream card though.
Almost all of these planeswalkers look playable in a lower-power environment. The only real and true stinker looks like Arlin to me. Many of them also support kinda rarely supported archetypes. Davriel for example looks like a bad mind rot, but could become an indispensable part of a Waste Not archetype.
I could even see a cube that plays all ten of the hybrid uncommon walkers. Vraska is a little weak, but in a planeswalker-heavy environment, she picks up value. It would make sense to do this for example in a Ravnica themed cube. The hybrid costs could really help to ease the burden on a large guild section. We haven't seen BU or GW yet, but they're probably good considering the rest of the cycle.
As I have said before, I'm tired of samey goodstuff mythic planeswalkers, and I love these cards. I can see them cards replacing some of the mythic ones that I have, and for the first time, I don't actually mind increasing my planeswalker density. Tons of these cards are just fabulous in an environment like mine, and at least half of them are absolutely playable.
Edit: Adding Tamiyo.
She's kinda weaker than most of these for cube. 2GU for an Eternal Witness that might get a second trigger is not terrible, but it's not great either. The static ability is quite narrow, and the +1 basically exists to feed a second Regrowth. If you get the second Regrowth, the card is pretty good (but not amazing), but otherwise it's not great. It's nice as a grave support card for GU, but it's one of the less playable walkers here as I see it. She doesn't look particularly better than the 2GU Kioras.
Meh. It's a planeswalker deck card, and those tend to be pretty useless. This is that.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Huatli, Sun's Heart 2(G/W)
Legendary Planeswalker - Huatli (U)
Each creature you control assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power
-3: You gain life equal to the greatest toughness among creatures you control.
{7}
Huatli is another iteration of the Doran effect. Again, that's not something you need in most cubes, but if you are interested in utilizing the toughness-matters/ defenders archetype, you probably want her. 2(G/W) makes her really easy to throw into any deck that favors toughness, but she's not going to be worth the slot in at least 65% of decks, which is a pretty big strike against her. I kinda wish the Doran ability were more unique, but having additional iterations is what you need to make it an archetype in cube. I have an extremely minor defenders/ toughness-matters subtheme, but I'm not looking to make it much bigger. Still I'm a sucker for cards like this. More often than not, it's better to not activate the ability, but when you do activate it, it'll be for a pretty large life swing.
Boy howdy!! It's good mill, great graveyard hate, and great tutor/fetch hate. What a weird combination. Anybody who supports a mill subtheme knows that graveyard hate is extremely important. For example, in a recent draft my mill deck was thrashed by a Muldrotha graveyard deck, and I ended up boarding out my mill cards. Ashiok would naturally have been a high pick for the deck and would have been a silver bullet in that nasty match-up. It's also fun that you can mill yourself while nuking other graves. The main problem is that it has zero board interaction. But some people will see that as a reason to ignore Ashiok, which can get problematic for them.
That's it for the hybrid uncommons. I'm not disappointed.
Nobody cares about this. Every single uncommon walker is better than this. With 36 walkers, one buy-a-box, and two planeswalker decks, I guess somebody had to be 39th place.
Sarkhan and Ugin both have SCD threads, so I'll leave them alone.
Uncommons I absolutely want to add:
Uncommons I may try:
For rares and mythics, I generally go as I open them. I like a several of them.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Maybe on top of the other Ashiok or ToS it could be a wincon, but that’s a narrow card slot.
A graveyard hating mill engine can be a big deal if you support a mill subtheme alongside a heavy graveyard theme like I do. Hybrid mana also makes it a sweet card to have on the sideboard for any deck that can cast 1UU or 1BB. If you come up against a graveyard deck, or a deck with a tutor engine (like Sisay or Pod), you'll be happy to board it in. I like that I can use a slot on a dedicated mill card that also has useful sideboard tech, especially since I love having sideboard cards but hate dedicating slots to them.
But yeah, it's not for most.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Narset is the last planeswalker. She also has her own thread. 39/39 are now known. I like the uncommons better than the rares or the mythics.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.