New Planeswalkers, cards and offers! (05/20/2016)

Hibernum_JC

Hey folks!

Today I’m here to talk about this week’s new arrivals to the game!

First, I’m proud to introduce a new Planeswalker - Ajani Vengeant! Ajani, like Tezzeret and Koth, is a legacy Planeswalker, and he comes to us from a slightly older set. We really liked what Ajani could bring to the table, as well as bringing the 2nd dual-colored Planeswalker to the game.

Ajani is Red and White, which is a pretty potent combination of colors. Being able to use Red’s massive direct damage and White’s control makes Ajani very strong.

Ajani’s mana gain is different from what you might have seen from Kiora initially - at level 60, he gains +1 to blue, +3 to White, +2 to Red and +2 to Green. As for his deck slots, at level 60 he can use 9 creatures, 6 spells and 5 supports, which is pretty average for an offensive Planeswalker.

His abilities are also pretty unique to him. His first ability, Sundering Slash, disables a creature. It’s a perfect match with White’s disable destruction, and will also combo very well with disabling your opponent’s Defenders and let your creatures through. Ranks 1 to 3 cost 6, and go up in power. At rank 1, it will disable a creature with Defender, Reach or Vigilance until the end of your turn. At rank 2, it’s until the beginning of your next turn, and at rank 3 it’s any creature until the beginning of your next turn. Rank 4 keeps the utility of rank 3 but lowers the cost to 3, so you can use it much more often.

His second ability, Lightning Helix, deals damage to a creature and Ajani gains life equal to the amount of damage he dealt. Every rank costs 9, and the damage and healing go from 3 to 6. Overall it’s a pretty powerful ability and combines the effects of White and Red beautifully to form a deadly combo.

His third ability, Reprisal, is devastating. At the cost of 18, it destroys gems on the board, starting with your opponent’s color. It goes from 5 gems to a whopping 20 gems! The way the ability works is as follows: Let’s say your opponent is Green and there are 15 Green gems on the board. Using Ajani’s ability at rank 4 will destroy all 15 of those Green gems and an extra 5 gems of other colors. Removing a color from the board is a surefire way to generate cascades! Another bonus to this is that it is especially tailored against dual-colored Planeswalkers, as you will destroy more than 1 color, reducing the color spread on the board quite a bit.

Ajani is available now through special offers, and will be available until May 27th. He will then become unavailable until June. The offer comes with one Fat Pack that includes only Red and White cards and 10000 Mana Runes.

Also now available is the Legendary Spells pack, which is available in three varieties - Booster, Fat Pack and Big Box. You can only loot Spells in these packs, so if there’s spells you have been really wanting, this is the time! The Fat Pack comes with a guaranteed Rare, while the Big Box comes with a guaranteed Mythic.

Also new today is the addition of both Koth of the Hammer and Garruk Wildspeaker in the Vault. Both are available for 250 Mana Crystals and will remain in the Vault indefinitely.

Last but not least I will also unveil the reward for this weekend’s Quick Battle - Oblivion Sower!

Oblivion Sower is another powerful Eldrazi card. With a 6/9 stat line, he’s quite dangerous on the battlefield (9 health is nothing to sneeze at!). He has a very powerful ability when entering the battlefield - he Ingests 10, then Processes 5 for yourself. What this means is you will convert 10 gems of your opponent’s color to Void, then convert 5 of those Void gems to your color. It’s an incredibly big swing, as this can create massive cascades where none existed before, and is tremendously powerful.

Oblivion Sower is the reward for the top 10 in the Ob Nixilis’ Minions Quick Battle this weekend. It will then be added to the BFZ packs at a later date.

Plastic

Hibernum_JC wrote:

. His first ability, Sundering Slash, disables a creature. It’s a perfect match with White’s disable destruction, and will also combo very well with disabling your opponent’s Defenders and let your creatures through. Ranks 1 to 3 cost 6, and go up in power. At rank 1, it will disable a creature with Defender, Reach or Vigilance until the end of your turn. At rank 2, it’s until the beginning of your next turn, and at rank 3 it’s any creature until the beginning of your next turn. Rank 4 keeps the utility of rank 3 but lowers the cost to 3, so you can use it much more often.

So this is basically the old Jayce's first ability on steroids, yet you guys felt it was overpowered enough to nerf his (Jayce) to be 6 loyalty. How does this make sense for Ajani exactly?

Zelandoni

Also, why is Ajani $40 when Kiora was $50?

PapiLouis4

Plastic wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

. His first ability, Sundering Slash, disables a creature. It’s a perfect match with White’s disable destruction, and will also combo very well with disabling your opponent’s Defenders and let your creatures through. Ranks 1 to 3 cost 6, and go up in power. At rank 1, it will disable a creature with Defender, Reach or Vigilance until the end of your turn. At rank 2, it’s until the beginning of your next turn, and at rank 3 it’s any creature until the beginning of your next turn. Rank 4 keeps the utility of rank 3 but lowers the cost to 3, so you can use it much more often.

So this is basically the old Jayce's first ability on steroids, yet you guys felt it was overpowered enough to nerf his (Jayce) to be 6 loyalty. How does this make sense for Ajani exactly?

my thoughts exactly, every single on of his skills is actually pretty good, and by far better than most other planeswalkers. that coupled with his ridiculously good mana generation just shows you how much of a pay to win pwalker he is

BassMuffinFIve

I like this new trend of introducing PW's with more and more mana gain! Please introduce a +3/+3/+3/+3/+3 multi-colored PW in the next couple weeks for the low low price of our $$$.

Alternately, you could try balancing the game and fixing bugs? Whichever! I, for one, will not be sticking around a Pay2Win grindfest.

EDUSAN

Plastic wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

. His first ability, Sundering Slash, disables a creature. It’s a perfect match with White’s disable destruction, and will also combo very well with disabling your opponent’s Defenders and let your creatures through. Ranks 1 to 3 cost 6, and go up in power. At rank 1, it will disable a creature with Defender, Reach or Vigilance until the end of your turn. At rank 2, it’s until the beginning of your next turn, and at rank 3 it’s any creature until the beginning of your next turn. Rank 4 keeps the utility of rank 3 but lowers the cost to 3, so you can use it much more often.

So this is basically the old Jayce's first ability on steroids, yet you guys felt it was overpowered enough to nerf his (Jayce) to be 6 loyalty. How does this make sense for Ajani exactly?

altough it might be similar, its not the same.
3 loyalty might be too low, but i wouldnt increase it to the point of jace's skill, because jace's real power of the 1st ability is to lower the damage that a defender/reach creature has, and then proceed to destroy it with your creatures.
A creature that is disabled will just be "invisible" to the other creatures but sooner or later they will have to go through that defender
3 is kinda low probably though

his mana gain should have been +3 white + 2 red (or viceversa, whatever the devs feel this pw is more of), +1 to green and +0 to blue and black
probably he has like 120 hp too like all the new expensive PW

Plastic

EDUSAN wrote:

Plastic wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

. His first ability, Sundering Slash, disables a creature. It’s a perfect match with White’s disable destruction, and will also combo very well with disabling your opponent’s Defenders and let your creatures through. Ranks 1 to 3 cost 6, and go up in power. At rank 1, it will disable a creature with Defender, Reach or Vigilance until the end of your turn. At rank 2, it’s until the beginning of your next turn, and at rank 3 it’s any creature until the beginning of your next turn. Rank 4 keeps the utility of rank 3 but lowers the cost to 3, so you can use it much more often.

So this is basically the old Jayce's first ability on steroids, yet you guys felt it was overpowered enough to nerf his (Jayce) to be 6 loyalty. How does this make sense for Ajani exactly?

altough it might be similar, its not the same.
3 loyalty might be too low, but i wouldnt increase it to the point of jace's skill, because jace's real power of the 1st ability is to lower the damage that a defender/reach creature has, and then proceed to destroy it with your creatures.
A creature that is disabled will just be "invisible" to the other creatures but sooner or later they will have to go through that defender
3 is kinda low probably though

I understand how Jayce's first ability has the use you mention, but that's honestly a secondary bonus imo. With old Jayce, I honestly didn't care about taking out an opposing creature so much as I just didn't want myself/my creatures to take damage. If I could make something 0/X indefinitely, that's great. Making a target "invisible" as you say is way better. It forces the AI to just eat up a creature slot since it won't ever replace creatures and I don't have to suffer anything from it.

And yes, 3 is low. Between Jayce nerf and Chandra's recent (yesterday! ffs!!) balancing, I really don't understand how Ajani was made this way. Mind boggling.

Zelandoni

Could it be explained why Ajani is priced at a lower point than Kiora, please? That's what frustrates me, as someone who who purchased Kiora.

PapiLouis4

Zelandoni wrote:

Could it be explained why Ajani is priced at a lower point than Kiora, please? That's what frustrates me, as someone who who purchased Kiora.

simple, they saw all the ppl complaining and decided to lower the cost to satisfy the public. but now ppl who purchased kiora will cry about paying more, you can never win lol

Hibernum_JC

I can't comment on the price point (as I'm not responsible for setting the price points!) but I can tell you why Ajani's first ability is like that and Jace's 1st was changed.

Essentially, Disabling a creature is very different than reducing their Power to (basically) 0. As someone else said, a Disabled creature will not block and will not attack. The big difference is that Jace's ability's true strength was very cheap and effective removal. Ajani needs specific spells to be able to destroy a Disabled creature, so you actually need to combo and add cards to your deck to get that going.

It's a very different feel.

paralistalon

Haha, I called it as far as the predicament they got themselves into by grossly overpricing Kiora. $40 is still steep... I would have preferred just paying closer to $20 and forgetting about the fat pack that likely won't get you any new cards.

As far as Ajani, holy ****, those abilities are nuts! He has Jace's overpowered 1st ability pre-nerf, Chandra's second ability from back when you didn't want to level her up because dealing damage to just one creature was almost always better, and Nissa's ultimate except even better. There was a reason why Jace was so annoying to play against... lol. At least we won't see Ajani as much being a premium walker.

Plastic

Hibernum_JC wrote:

I can't comment on the price point (as I'm not responsible for setting the price points!) but I can tell you why Ajani's first ability is like that and Jace's 1st was changed.

Essentially, Disabling a creature is very different than reducing their Power to (basically) 0. As someone else said, a Disabled creature will not block and will not attack. The big difference is that Jace's ability's true strength was very cheap and effective removal. Ajani needs specific spells to be able to destroy a Disabled creature, so you actually need to combo and add cards to your deck to get that going.

It's a very different feel.

It's a different feel, yes, but a disabled creature means the AI will nearly always (thanks for that, 3 loyalty cost!) only have 2 creatures that are going to be doing anything. With Jayce, bringing a creature to 0/X and then removing them because they were a defender/reacher (or flip the scenario) is worse in that the AI can put a new creature down as a replacement.

EDHdad

Could it be explained why Ajani is priced at a lower point than Kiora, please? That's what frustrates me, as someone who who purchased Kiora.

Pace yourself. In paper Magic, there are over 80 different Planeswalker cards, and more are being added with every Standard-legal set.

As far as I'm concerned, the cheaper the better.

It seems likely they started with a high price point to see how many people would buy. Now they're testing the edges to see how price sensitive the market is.

If they ever get down to 99 cents, I might have to dust off the old iTunes gift card and give them a whirl.

madwren

Ajani's ability only affects creatures with Reach/Defender/Vigilance, though. Jace's affects any creature he wants.

Plastic

madwren wrote:

Ajani's ability only affects creatures with Reach/Defender/Vigilance, though. Jace's affects any creature he wants.

Ah I didn't quite absorb that part. I suppose it's ok with that limitation.

HelloWorld

Zelandoni wrote:

Could it be explained why Ajani is priced at a lower point than Kiora, please? That's what frustrates me, as someone who who purchased Kiora.

Kiora came with a blue & green pack plus 200 mana shards.
Ajani came with a white & red pack and 10,000 level up tokens that'll probably only get him to level ten.

The better question is why does Ajani have such high mana bonuses but Kiora gets the shaft? The rational that green already has gem coloring is easily countered by red's destruction can still trigger cascades and Ajani sounds like he has the single most powerful form of gem manipulation made so far.

Zelandoni

Plastic wrote:

madwren wrote:

Ajani's ability only affects creatures with Reach/Defender/Vigilance, though. Jace's affects any creature he wants.

Ah I didn't quite absorb that part. I suppose it's ok with that limitation.

No, at rank 3 it changes to affect any creature. That's what JC's post says.

Plastic

Zelandoni wrote:

Plastic wrote:

madwren wrote:

Ajani's ability only affects creatures with Reach/Defender/Vigilance, though. Jace's affects any creature he wants.

Ah I didn't quite absorb that part. I suppose it's ok with that limitation.

No, at rank 3 it changes to affect any creature. That's what JC's post says.

I stand with my original "**** op gg no re" statements then.

span_argoman

HelloWorld wrote:

Zelandoni wrote:

Could it be explained why Ajani is priced at a lower point than Kiora, please? That's what frustrates me, as someone who who purchased Kiora.

Kiora came with a blue & green pack plus 200 mana shards.
Ajani came with a white & red pack and 10,000 level up tokens that'll probably only get him to level ten.

The better question is why does Ajani have such high mana bonuses but Kiora gets the shaft? The rational that green already has gem coloring is easily countered by red's destruction can still trigger cascades and Ajani sounds like he has the single most powerful form of gem manipulation made so far.

Kiora has a choice of gem conversion supports (Nissa's Pilgrimage, Fertile Thicket, Yavimaya Coast), gem conversion spells (Animist's Awakening, Nissa's Renewal, Natural Connection, Swell of Growth, Sylvan Scrying) and Blue's ability to cycle cards (notably Day's Undoing but also a ton of other cards).

Ajani's gem destruction ability costs 18 which isn't that cheap so it can't be used that often. Ajani's board destruction is limited to Volcanic Rambler and Abbot of Keral Keep.

There is not much of a comparison here. Kiora has the potential to gain just as much if not more mana if built right.

madwren

Plastic wrote:

Zelandoni wrote:

Plastic wrote:

madwren wrote:

Ajani's ability only affects creatures with Reach/Defender/Vigilance, though. Jace's affects any creature he wants.

Ah I didn't quite absorb that part. I suppose it's ok with that limitation.

No, at rank 3 it changes to affect any creature. That's what JC's post says.

I stand with my original "**** op gg no re" statements then.

My bad, I missed that part of the post. Sorry for the confusion.

nyaa

I thought that the mana bonus was a typo but it really is the ridiculous +8 bonus (which is a tad weird if not crazily mana efficient). The +1 to blue doesn't even make sense lore-wise (not that it matters that much here) given that no iterations of Ajani so far is blue aligned). Also bear in mind that despite being able to use both red and white cards, his net mana generation is better than a standalone red or standalone white walker.

The first ability is definitely under-costed -- sure, it may be worse than Jace's first ability in some instances but lets also acknowledge that it may be a lot better than Jace's first ability in many other instances. I just faced one and indeed at its fourth level, it does disable a creature until the beginning of your next turn Granted, it lacks the advantages of Jace's ability but at 3 cost (and as we have seen with Chandra), the ability is easily spammable, effectively putting a creature out of action (never mind white's synergy with the disable mechanic).