Aether Revolt -or- Kaladesh 2: Ghirapur Drift

[Meekrab]

His ultimate is.... well.... I mean, it does start animating your whole board one dude at a time. You were playing heavy artifacts already, obviously, as otherwise his removal ability is no good. It does win the game eventually. It's like a baby version of that Thassa-wannabe Planeswalker's ability. What was her name again? She crapped out 8/8 octopuses each turn. Anyway, its kind of like that.

Because I'm a pedantic little **** ... the girl that created 8/8 Octopi just dumped out three of them and had them beat up your opponent(s)' creatures. The one that made a swimmy monster every turn made 9/9 Krakens. Which makes no goddamn sense because Krakens / squids have 10 tentacles but whatever, 9/9 is more exotic or something.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Why do all their recent PWs have to be 4-6 mana? Why must all have ultimates? Why cant they print 1-3 cc planeswalkers with synergetic effects? Was Dack & Liliana all they could come up with?

Bad planeswalker is bad, but as C pointed out it's not the worst card ever... just the worst Tezzeret. They can't sustain making each new printing better than the previous iterations. The floor for mythic design is probably "Does this steal every game of limited?" This passes...

And they literally just printed three 3CMC walkers in a row: Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Liliana, the Last Hope, and Saheeli Rai. Everybody should keep in mind that we'll be lucky if 3 cards see considerable Legacy play from the entire block.

[Lemnear]

I would wish they would print more walkers alongside the Conspiracy one, with clever and unusual mechanics instead of repeating the same patterns of...

+: Character-related minor trait (cardselection, draw, token, etc)
-: some form of self-protection (unless + is already a token)
Ultimate: Some sort of overkill

Its not about powerlevel, but a matter of having no idea what to do with the cardtype. They can't even come up with creative ways of increasing loyalty

[Echelon]

Its not about powerlevel, but a matter of having no idea what to do with the cardtype. They can't even come up with creative ways of increasing loyalty

It's only a matter of time before they come up with accessoires for Planeswalkers. Give Jace some pretty Earrings or a pimp Gold Chain to do X, that sort of crap. But they won't call it Equipment and Equip: X - it's totally different.

Or Auras. Or just spells like PW Berserk, to double your PW's loyalty, but at the end of your turn the PW dies.

[Sooru]

Or Auras. Or just spells like PW Berserk, to double your PW's loyalty, but at the end of your turn the PW dies.

The White Ancestral should be "W Instant - Put three loyalty counters on target planeswalker", not Healing Salve.

[Watersaw]

I would wish they would print more walkers alongside the Conspiracy one, with clever and unusual mechanics instead of repeating the same patterns of...

+: Character-related minor trait (cardselection, draw, token, etc)
-: some form of self-protection (unless + is already a token)
Ultimate: Some sort of overkill

Its not about powerlevel, but a matter of having no idea what to do with the cardtype. They can't even come up with creative ways of increasing loyalty

This. Planeswalkers are incredibly complex from a rules standpoint. They have so much built-in baggage that there really isn't much that can be done with them, even when there are only 2 or 3 a set. The "mythic only" restriction makes it even worse, since each one has to have at least one ability that can theoretically end the game.

[MaximumC]

This. Planeswalkers are incredibly complex from a rules standpoint. They have so much built-in baggage that there really isn't much that can be done with them, even when there are only 2 or 3 a set. The "mythic only" restriction makes it even worse, since each one has to have at least one ability that can theoretically end the game.

Thats a cop out. There's plenty of design space, they just can't mine it too quickly. Consider the following:

Countdown Walker
CC 3 - Starting Loyalty: 10
-1: Target creature gets +1/+1 or -1/-1 until end of turn.
-2: Return target artifact to its owner's hand.
+10: Return all permanents controlled by opponents to their owner's hand. Use this ability only if this Walker has 2 or less loyalty.

Helpful Walker
CC4 - Starting Loyalty: 3
+1: Each player returns a card from his or her graveyard to owner's hand.
-3: Until end of turn, each other Walker you control gains all abilities of this Walker.
-5: Target player draws seven cards. Then, choose one: that player discards his or her hand, or that player returns all cards in his her graveyard to his or her hand.

Bad Walker
CC5 - Starting Loyalty: 5
+1: Choose up to one target creatures. Exile a card from your hand, face up. Deal X damage to the chosen creature, where X is the exiled cards' converted mana cost.
-3: Return a face-up permanent from exile to the battlefield under your control. At the beginning of the next end step, sacrifice that permanent and you lose life equal to its converted mana cost.
-9: Return all face-up permanents from exile to the battlefield under your control. Each opponent loses life equal to the sum of the converted mana costs of these permanents.

And so on. It's not hard to come up with wacky designs, but it is hard to carefully measure out those designs over time so you don't run out of stuff.

[Ace/Homebrew]

...and also to make sure the planeswalkers are balanced with other aspects of the game.

For instance, your countdown walker for 3 mana would be broken with the newly spoiled Heart of Kiran.

[Watersaw]

They print what, 15 new planeswalkers a year at most? There are currently 82 in existence. That is an order of magnitude less than any other card type (excluding defunct Tribal and World Enchantment) If you are wary about mining design space too quickly in a card type that is less than a decade old there is a fundamental problem with that element.

[MaximumC]

They print what, 15 new planeswalkers a year at most? There are currently 82 in existence. That is an order of magnitude less than any other card type (excluding defunct Tribal and World Enchantment) If you are wary about mining design space too quickly in a card type that is less than a decade old there is a fundamental problem with that element.

Well, I'm not going to disagree that Walkers were generally a bad idea for the game. I don't understand why a new type was needed at all from a game standpoint. Though, I know why they were needed from marketing perspective.

[phonics]

New tezz would need to be UB to even have a chance of being played I think. The only way I see this kind of planeswalker being played is with mana rocks, since I think he was over costed by design to account for this, and it is basically a necessity for his - to have any use. But if you are using rocks to accelerate then the + ability seems superfluous, they should have made it sac to add 1 mana or 1 loyalty counter or proliferate or something, it's so anemic. One of the remaining unspoiled mythics must be super busted if the planeswalkers are going to be duds like this.

Make a planeswalker with X starting loyalty based off of something like discarding cards from your hand, exiling from graveyard, milling from library even. Make one that can natively use their abilities at instant speed or at some point during an opponents turn with flash. Make more that want to count down. Make one that has strong abilities but is disadvantageous when left in play. Mythic cards were supposed to be awesome and unique, not generic, 20$ value machine planeswalkers with the same 3 types of abilities that all play the same. You are supposed to be calling in the aid of a super powerful being to help you win, but now these planeswalkers feel like you are calling them in to mow your lawn or pick up groceries.

[MaximumC]

New tezz would need to be UB to even have a chance of being played I think.

No, I think that 2UB is fair, and 1UB would be pushed. UB is silly. Remember, in addition to having marginally useful abilities to begin with, he synergizes with himself pretty hard. The tokens he makes slowly ratchet up the power of his second ability if you don't cash them out, and provide fodder for his ultimate. At UB, you would slip him down early, protect him, and ride him to a grinding victory as his -2 is always good enough to stop the opponent's activity.

At 2UB, he's behind the creature curve in a big way. At UB, he's the centerpiece of an oppressive control deck.

[tescrin]

UB would be insane; because then you'd have 5 mana on turn 3 with no help. In DRS colors you could easily go T2-Tezz+Plow. T3 - Grave Titan

That's pretty insane by comparison to just about any other legacy play; including Nic Fit.

But yeah, UB would be legacy worthy (and likely cause Esper Miracles to eat the format in a day.) UB1 would arguably see play.

But trying to design a Standard format where the UB version sees play would require at least Lightning Bolt, and possibly Decay. Note that it's also (at UB) a T2 5/5 with haste that could be swinging. I think the UB version would have to be at 1 loyalty or something as to block the T2 5/5 and allow White/Green able to attack him with their 1-drop for a kill

[Lemnear]

No, I think that 2UB is fair, and 1UB would be pushed. UB is silly. Remember, in addition to having marginally useful abilities to begin with, he synergizes with himself pretty hard. The tokens he makes slowly ratchet up the power of his second ability if you don't cash them out, and provide fodder for his ultimate. At UB, you would slip him down early, protect him, and ride him to a grinding victory as his -2 is always good enough to stop the opponent's activity.

At 2UB, he's behind the creature curve in a big way. At UB, he's the centerpiece of an oppressive control deck.

The point remains: Why not run Agent of Bolas and start slapping with 5/5s instead of durdling with some weak creature removal traits and Lotus Petals? As Richard Cheese mentioned, DRS (which i also count as a pseudo PW) is 1cc and also producing a LotusPetalEffect mana acceleration, so I think its ridiculous that suddenly a slightly less restrictive way of mana acceleration should cost 4-times as much. To be metagame relevant this Tezz would need to drop SolRings or BlackLotus tokens to work as a mana accelerator himself in his primary function.

Essentially, I want more DRS/Liliana level PWs and less EDH junk

[Dice_Box]

Essentially, I want more DRS/Liliana level PWs and less EDH junk

But that's unlikely. The power level it takes to break into Legacy is often so much higher than Standard can sustain. This means those kinds of walkers will be very rare. Not that I disagree, but we are most likely to get cards that work in narrow strategies than broad sweeping cards like Liliana and Shaman.

[Richard Cheese]

Essentially, I want more DRS/Liliana level PWs and less EDH junk

For reals? I wish they'd never even come up with the card type and would burn all the current ones in a fire.

[Di]

But that's unlikely. The power level it takes to break into Legacy is often so much higher than Standard can sustain. This means those kinds of walkers will be very rare. Not that I disagree, but we are most likely to get cards that work in narrow strategies than broad sweeping cards like Liliana and Shaman.

While I agree it's unlikely to print many more cards of that power level, neither Liliana or DRS were amazing in Standard so it's hard to say how a card will be great in Eternal formats while screwing over Standard. DRS was merely okay without fetch lands enabling it, and Liliana only saw play in a couple decks, but was never an auto 4of or even considered overpowered. Those are only two examples, but take Jace Vryn's Prodigy on the other side which was nuts in Standard yet a very fringe card in Eternal. I think it's likely safe to print cards like this so long as they don't entirely warp formats, but also may require things outside the Standard card pool (like fetch lands with DRS) to take them over the top.

[rufus]

I think tezzeret scissorhands will be a beast in standard. If the +X/-X ability could actually work as a pump effect, he would be a lot more interesting in other formats.

[TsumiBand]

I think tezzeret scissorhands will be a beast in standard. If the +X/-X ability could actually work as a pump effect, he would be a lot more interesting in other formats.

I mean, the obvious chombo is this and Wall of Blood

[Darkenslight]

I think tezzeret scissorhands will be a beast in standard. If the +X/-X ability could actually work as a pump effect, he would be a lot more interesting in other formats.

See, I'm in a little bit of disagreement with the rest fo the board here. Thisd Tezz is, on paper, the worst of the Tezzerets by an order of magnitude.

What is interesting is that ramp effect. I suspect that people are undervaluing the combination of Fixing and Temp-ramp that this Tezz provides. In Eternal, it's unlikely to see play as more than a 1-of, but I'd be surprised if it always felt underwhelming. Tibalt this ain't, but it's not, strictly-speaking, a bad 'walker. I think it will find a niche in all formats, but it will be as an addition, rather than a whole new deck archetype, like Agent of Bolas.