Planeswalkers requiring rebalance

MTG_Mage

So instead of complaining about them I will just suggest tweaks.

Jace's first ability is good, and his 3rd is ok, however his second ability is very weak when compared to Kiora which does basically the same thing but for creatures, and it fetches instead of being limited to a spell already cast. Buff Jace's Ingenuity to have the spell gain 4 per level like kiora instead of 1 which it is now so the spell will gain (or be reduced by) 16 instead of 4.

Ajani is good, however middle ability lightning helix is weak when compared to chandra's middle ability, scorching strike. 12 loyalty to do up to 6 to one creature and gain 6 life is weak compared to 4 damage to all opponent's creatures for 9 loyalty. Please allow Ajani to target creatures and/or players and/or reduce the loyalty to 9.
His 3rd ability also does much less than hers as well, destroying 20 gems vs destroying 50 gems and doing 25 damage! His mana bonuses are much better than hers but that is too big a rift for only a 3 loyalty difference. I suggest at least a boost from 4 per tier to 5 and/or reduced cost to 15 from 18.

Garruk can use a boost from summoning 4 1/1, 2/2 or 3/3 creatures by making them all +1 bigger, so 2/2, 3/3, 4/4 would work much better and he would see more use. Instead of snakes, wolves and beasts, how about wolves, bears and beasts at the better stats. Also changing his art to one of the cards instead of from the garruk-vs-liliana duel deck would be nice. Since his second ability is more efficient than 1 and 3, and all 3 abilities just being the same is boring, so how about giving two of those some combination of trample, berserker, defender/reach. This would make him versatile and all of his abilities useful.

Sarkhan being reliant on dragons is not good when all dragons are mythics (I know 1 is rare). Maybe if he came with a dragon card when purchased...

How about making heroic encounters for all planeswalkers and his reward for beating all 5 of his with all objectives is a random dragon card!

- ? Tezzeret has 2 versions in paper magic, one of which is blue/black. I feel that the mtgpq tezzeret is very limited since there are only a few really good blue supports, and the best one by far, thopter spy newtwork, is mythic and very hard to get. It would be awesome if he was adjusted and made 2 color. However there are not really any good black supports either, so hopefully more are coming soon. Since he is completely reliant on supports, much like Sarkhan is on dragons, I suggest a guaranteed rare or mythic support he can use when beating his heroic encounter as well.

Morphis

Ok I'll give my opinion on this:

Jace: I think you are overall right but you cannot really compare spells to creature one-by-one mana.
Spells are meant to be overall cheaper.
This is logic when you consider just one effect: spells are not permanent.
That said the mana reduction for Jace could be improved for sure.
8 or 10 mana at max level could be fine.

Ajani: second skill was fine at 9.
At 12 it just costs too much.
Reduce it to 9 or improve to 8 damage at least(to be able to kill bigger targets).
Third skill you cannot compare to Chandra.
Chandra's is meant to deal high damage and give some chance to mana gain.
Ajani's is pure mana gain and usually nets you more mana. The difference being less valuable than Chandra addeddamage is debatable(but true in my opinion).

Sarkhan: the problem more than on rarity of dragons is in quantity.
Those are the only dragons.
That has more to do with the current cards.
It could change in future.

Tezzeret: I made a big post about it:
The short version is: he lacks supports that impact the game directly.
This like sarkhan is subject to change as new cards are added(more likely to fix itself faster than sarkhan).

Theros

Koth needs to be tuned down a little bit. he was weak before and now overpowered after the recent buff. 12 mana for red match is too much and the 1 skill is too good for cascades. Its not like red gems are lacking/rare to justify that. very frustrating to play against. There is no doubt he is the most powerful PW

JanksMcJank

MTG_Mage wrote:

Ajani is good, however middle ability lightning helix is weak when compared to chandra's middle ability, scorching strike. 12 loyalty to do up to 6 to one creature and gain 6 life is weak compared to 4 damage to all opponent's creatures for 9 loyalty. Please allow Ajani to target creatures and/or players and/or reduce the loyalty to 9.
His 3rd ability also does much less than hers as well, destroying 20 gems vs destroying 50 gems and doing 25 damage! His mana bonuses are much better than hers but that is too big a rift for only a 3 loyalty difference. I suggest at least a boost from 4 per tier to 5 and/or reduced cost to 15 from 18.

Her only use to me is that she's red/white.
Where I am with her, the mana isn't any good and the first ability never comes into play.

MTG_Mage wrote:

Sarkhan being reliant on dragons is not good when all dragons are mythics (I know 1 is rare). Maybe if he came with a dragon card when purchased...

How about making heroic encounters for all planeswalkers and his reward for beating all 5 of his with all objectives is a random dragon card!

There are 4 dragon cards that I see (3 dragons and a shaman that summons dragons if you don't pop your red gems). All are mythic.
I'm not sure if I had all 4 mythics if I could pull off a viable deck with him that didn't just luck it's way into winning.

MTG_Mage wrote:

- ? Tezzeret has 2 versions in paper magic, one of which is blue/black. I feel that the mtgpq tezzeret is very limited since there are only a few really good blue supports, and the best one by far, thopter spy newtwork, is mythic and very hard to get. It would be awesome if he was adjusted and made 2 color. However there are not really any good black supports either, so hopefully more are coming soon. Since he is completely reliant on supports, much like Sarkhan is on dragons, I suggest a guaranteed rare or mythic support he can use when beating his heroic encounter as well.

I also noticed that because you can't "choose" the support you want to enhance, I ended up getting frustrated with him.
I had the same issue where I tried to make a deck around supporting supports and I just didn't have any blue/colorless that I could build a deck off of.

MTG_Mage

I really think that it is very important to keep all Planeswalkers comparable in overall power considering they pilot the decks. However that is hard to balance with their 3 abilites and considering they are all different colors. This is additionally more difficult with dual color planeswalkers (even though they do require double the mana runes to level up, but that should not be considered for power balancing purposes)

There have been rebalances of the abilites in the past, which is great, but Planeswalkers are not just their 3 abilities. They each have varying Hit Points, Mana Bonuses and allowances of card types.

Mana Bonuses vary from +5 to +8, with the original 5 all having +5. A +8 PW has significantly more potential mana production than a +5, and that difference in power needs to be taken up by the other powers of the planeswalkers.

Hit Points vary between level 60 PWs from 82 to 119. That is a significant amount. Even within color, for example Chandra with 82 vs Koth with 111 is a lot and I dont see the justification for such a difference.

The amount of creatures, spells and supports a PW is allowed in their deck is also in need of review. These numbers are directly related to the 3 abilities of said PW more than HP and mana bonuses.

At the end of the day, assuming access to all cards, all PWs should be comparatively powerful to each other.

I would really like to hear from the devs on how these are calculated, and comments on my original post.

Upstartes

I haven't played Jace in a long time, but started again recently to do some blue Color Mastery grinding. I found that I rarely used the first two abilities. The first is just so expensive for what it does, that it rarely seems worth it except in dire emergencies. The second ability I use sometimes, but the added 4 mana seems more insult than bonus. The last ability is great as-is.

I think the first ability, if it is to stay at its current cost, should at least be set back to its original -6 power (at max level).

The second ability should definitely get an increase in its bonus mana. +6 at max level would be solid, as there are a fair number of good blue spells that cost 6 or less. +8 would be even better.

I feel like Jace is the most un-played of all the planeswalkers. I'd be curious to hear if the statistics show that to be true.

MTG_Mage

Ok I now firmly believe that Koth is in fact overtuned. +9 red is just too high, even with -1 on white and blue he still is +7 overall which is 2 higher than many of the planeswalkers (they range from +5 to +8) so putting koth at +7 red gives him an overall bonus of +5 and he still will be very good.

Kiora is also overtuned. Nevermind that blue has the best top cards and green ramps super good, its all 3 of her abilities are excellent and always useful. Most other planeswalkers have at least 1 not so great ability or all are overall good, but not all excellent. Her first is by far the most annoying and I would like to see changed because the ai will spam it constantly which is, at the very least, very annoying. Combine it with blues draining and green ramp and it gets ugly. Her 3rd ability is a bit much as well. Tune back the octopi any way possible, be it making them less than 8/8 each or losing trample or reach. Why do they have both trample and reach? That doesnt even make sense coming from an aquatic creature and make the creature way too versitile, and the paper versions of the octopi are just vanilla 8/8s.

On the subject of annoying things, the most aggravating things in this game are: mass bounce, mana drain/discard from top card, permanent stealing of creatures...and blue has all of those abilities! I would like to see those toned down. Getting rid of trample and reach on octopus tokens would tune down crush of tentacles and kioras 3rd.

MTG_Mage

Ajani Vengeant
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +3, G +2, R +2, B, U +1
Level 60 HP: 119
Level 60 max: Creatures:9 Spells:6 Supports:5

Chandra, Roaring Flame
Level 60 mana bonuses: W, G +1, R +3, B +1, U
Level 60 HP: 82
Level 60 max: Creatures:10 Spells:10 Supports:6

Garruk Wildspeaker
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +2, G +3, R +2, B +1, U
Level 60 HP: 109
Level 60 max: Creatures:4 Spells:10 Supports:6

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +2, G +2, R, B, U +2
Level 60 HP: 104
Level 60 max: Creatures:5 Spells:10 Supports:7

Gideon, Battle-Forged
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +3, G +1, R, B, U +1
Level 60 HP: 104
Level 60 max: Creatures:9 Spells:6 Supports:7

Jace, Telepath Unbound
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +1, G, R, B +1, U +3
Level 60 HP: 88
Level 60 max: Creatures:8 Spells:10 Supports:8

Kiora, Master of the Depths
Level 60 mana bonuses: W, G +3, R, B, U +3
Level 60 HP: 105
Level 60 max: Creatures:5 Spells:8 Supports:6

Koth of the Hammer
Level 60 mana bonuses: W -1, G, R +9, B, U -1
Level 60 HP: 111
Level 60 max: Creatures:10 Spells:6 Supports:3

Liliana, Defiant Necromancer
Level 60 mana bonuses: W, G, R +1, B +3, U +1
Level 60 HP: 94
Level 60 max: Creatures:9 Spells:10 Supports:8

Nahiri, the Harbinger
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +4, G +1, R +4, B -1, U
Level 60 HP: 102
Level 60 max: Creatures:9 Spells:4 Supports:4

Nissa, Sage Animist
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +1, G +3, R +1, B, U
Level 60 HP: 98
Level 60 max: Creatures:10 Spells:7 Supports: 6

Ob Nixilis, Reignited
Level 60 mana bonuses: W, G, R +1, B +3, U +1
Level 60 HP: 119
Level 60 max: Creatures:8 Spells:8 Supports:8

Saheeli Rai
Level 60 mana bonuses: W, G +1, R +4, B, U +4
Level 60 HP: 118
Level 60 max: Creatures:8 Spells:7 Supports:7

Sarkhan the Mad
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +1, G +1, R +2, B +2, U +1
Level 60 HP: 119
Level 60 max: Creatures:9 Spells:7 Supports:6

Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +4, G, R, B +4, U
Level 60 HP: 82
Level 60 max: Creatures:10 Spells:3 Supports:3

Tezzeret the Seeker
Level 60 mana bonuses: W +2, G, R, B +2, U +3
Level 60 HP: 99
Level 60 max: Creatures:5 Spells:8 Supports:9


Here are the stats for all current planeswalkers. I still would like to know why HP is so different, and especially why creatures/spells/supports limits are so low on Sorin and Nahiri. I think all PWs should have a limit between 5 and 8 on all card types (more than 8 is as unnecessary as 5 or less is too restrictive), and any 5 or less should be relooked at.

Netatron

The Origins 5 planeswalkers are supposed to be weaker than the more expensive ones. You have to compare the investment of mana crystals to get stronger with planeswalkers or with new cards... which isn't really a fair comparison ever since the card drop rates were nerfed.

MTG_Mage

I did mention Sorin and Nahiri which are premium PWs. Hopefully they will have their limits to spells/supports increased.

I have another idea to improve Garruk. The token creatures he makes with loyalty can have the following abilities:
Snake: "when this creatures power is 8 or greater, it gains deathtouch"
Wolves: "when this creatures power is 16 or greater, it gains defender"
Beasts: "when this creatures power is 24 or greater, it gains trample and berserker"
so the idea is if you cast the same one more than once it will get something.

Morphis

MTG_Mage wrote:

I did mention Sorin and Nahiri which are premium PWs. Hopefully they will have their limits to spells/supports increased.

I have another idea to improve Garruk. The token creatures he makes with loyalty can have the following abilities:
Snake: "when this creatures power is 8 or greater, it gains deathtouch"
Wolves: "when this creatures power is 16 or greater, it gains defender"
Beasts: "when this creatures power is 24 or greater, it gains trample and berserker"
so the idea is if you cast the same one more than once it will get something.

This idea is nice cause it would at the very least give different uses for different tokens.

I would give wolves berserk and trample(or even only trample) and beasts defender cause:

- wolves are more seen as offensive creatures.
- beast being an ultimate has more need of impacting the board instantly. Having defender has more instant impact than having berserk.

Snakes having death touch makes perfect sense cause they are poisonous.

MTG_Mage

Current creature/spell/support limit (my suggested change in brackets)
This way all PWs will all have totals of 18-21 which is a closer spread than 16-27.
Below 5 is too restrictive and more than 8 is too much, besides I havent really seen any decks with more than 6 of any one type.

Ajani Vengeant
Creatures:9(8) Spells:6 Supports:5[6] - totals 20(20)

Chandra, Roaring Flame
Creatures:10(7) Spells:10(7) Supports:6 - totals 26(20)

Garruk Wildspeaker
Creatures:4[5] Spells:10(8) Supports:6 - totals 20(19)

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Creatures:5[6] Spells:10(8) Supports:7 - totals 22(21)

Gideon, Battle-Forged
Creatures:9(8) Spells:6 Supports:7 - totals 22(21)

Jace, Telepath Unbound
Creatures:8(7) Spells:10(7) Supports:8(7) - totals 26(21)

Kiora, Master of the Depths
Creatures:5 Spells:8 Supports:6 - totals 19

Koth of the Hammer
Creatures:10(8) Spells:6 Supports:3[5] - totals 19(19)

Liliana, Defiant Necromancer
Creatures:9(7) Spells:10(7) Supports:8(7) - totals 27(21)

Nahiri, the Harbinger
Creatures:9(8) Spells:4[5] Supports:4[5] - totals 17(18)

Nissa, Sage Animist
Creatures:10(8) Spells:7 Supports: 6 - totals 23(21)

Ob Nixilis, Reignited
Creatures:8(7) Spells:8(7) Supports:8(7) - totals 24(21)

Saheeli Rai
Creatures:8(7) Spells:7 Supports:7 - totals 22(21)

Sarkhan the Mad
Creatures:9(8) Spells:7 Supports:6 - totals 22(21)

Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Creatures:10(8) Spells:3[5] Supports:3[5] - totals 16(18)

Tezzeret the Seeker
Creatures:5 Spells:8 Supports:9(8) - totals 22(21)



Summarized PW balancing ideas (in addition to the type limits above):

Jace:
-Buff Jace's Ingenuity to have the spell gain 2 or 3 per level like kiora instead of 1 which it is now so the spell will gain (or be reduced by) 8 or 12 instead of 4.

Ajani:
-Buff lightning helix to to target creatures OR PLAYERS, and/or reduce the loyalty to 9, and/or increase damage/lifegain to 8
-Buff reprisal to destroy 6 gems per tier (24 max) and reduce loyalty cost to 15

Garruk:
change his pic, and the token creatures he makes with loyalty can have the following abilities:
-Snake: "when this creatures power is 6 or greater, it gains deathtouch"
-Wolves: "when this creatures power is 12 or greater, it gains trample"
-Beasts: "when this creatures power is 18 or greater, it gains defender"

Sorin:
-redo his first 2 abilities from this:
9-deal 1 damage to each of your creatures and gain 4 life per creature you control
12-gain life equal to the amount of supports you control times 8, then destroy each support you control
to this:
9-deal 2 damage to each of your opponents creatures, gain 4 life per creature damaged this way
12-summon 4 1/1 vampire knight tokens with lifelink
-buff his spell and support limit from 3 to 5 each

Koth:
-nerf his red mana gain from +9 to +7
-nerf all 3 of his loyalty abilites from 6,12,20 to 9,15,21
-buff his support limit from 3 to 5

Kiora:
-nerf her crashing waves loyalty cost from 6 to 9
-nerf the octopi tokens she generates to NOT have reach or trample (this applies to crush of tentacles too)

AlmightyGERM

I don't know if this a rebalance or a bug issue but Koth of the Hammer when he uses his ability Reshape the land he gets gets his plainswalker mana back up after all the cascading is over and done and can cast again the following turn but when Nissa uses her Natures Bounty or Natures Growth all that plainswalker mana that you would get from the matches is discarded when it refreshes after the cascades as if you didn't receive anything from the cascades...

If this needs to go into another thread let me know closest thing I could find for it right now

TheLegendDan

Nahiri, the Harbinger's 3rd ability is way over powered. I just got knocked from 75 life to 25 in 3 turns because of the A.I.'s uncanny ability to find massive cascades. Nothing should be able to dish out 50 damage in 3 turns.

Btw those 3 turns were

Turn1: 6 mana - forge
Turn2: ungodly cascade plays 8/8 dragon and 5/5 devil wolf
Turn3: haste and trample dragon buff to 40/40 hit for 40+5 to my 2 defenders and myself +5

MaxMagic420

TheLegendDan wrote:

Nahiri, the Harbinger's 3rd ability is way over powered. I just got knocked from 75 life to 25 in 3 turns because of the A.I.'s uncanny ability to find massive cascades. Nothing should be able to dish out 50 damage in 3 turns.

Btw those 3 turns were

Turn1: 6 mana - forge
Turn2: ungodly cascade plays 8/8 dragon and 5/5 devil wolf
Turn3: haste and trample dragon buff to 40/40 hit for 40+5 to my 2 defenders and myself +5

Sarkhan's third ability at lvl 45 (that's where mine is at), coupled with a reinforced Tyrant of valakut, hits for 36 on the attack and the dragon does 18, so that's 54 there and I win every match with sarkhan more or less like that. Usually that hits for more, because that deck also has two spells to give mr. dragon double strike and +3/1 and life link. I've dealt well over 120 damage in a turn this way.
Btw, those two spells are commons. Dragon might be mythic, and I was blessed that day for sure, but those three cards with sarkhan is just an obscene combination. Irony is, once he's maxed, that last ability is three times the power of 'ol scalybutt, and that's some serious firepower. 150+ in a single turn? Very possible.

Typhon

I can tell you right now as a Koth player, he is the most powerful hands down, i go 80 to 90 games without a loss in quick match all the time, I am always top 10 if not top 5 recently, the other planes walkers just can't keep up with red in general, let alone koth

Xakarath

1) I would like to see mana gains normalized for planeswalkers.

Mono color walkers would get +5 to their main color and +2 to it's allied colors, and +0 to it's enemy colors for a total of +9. The bonus for going single color would be overall slightly higher mana generation

Dual color walkers would get +3 to their main 2 colors and +1 to 2 other colors and the last color getting +0 for a total of +8

Tri color walkers when they are released could be +3 (or +5) to one of it's colors, and +2 (or +1) to the other two. The off colors would be +0 for a total of +7. The price of versatility.


2) Life totals could be balanced with larger hand sizes. Chandra and Jace with their HP in the 80s could perhaps have 1 or 2 more cards in hand than Ajani or Ob Nixilis. The tough planeswalkers have more life. The smart ones have larger hands.

3) While your at it, Normalize hit point totals by rounding them to the nearest 10

4) Remove all Levels. I do not want to grind my planeswalker. Just give me a maxed planeswalker if I'm buying it. I shouldn't need to play 100 to 200 quick battle games to make a new planeswalker usable.

5) Allow defunct mana runes to be used for other things like perhaps 100k mana runes buys a rare of your choice, or 1 million buys a mythic of your choice. We have to have a way to flush out the last card after we have dropped a whale's wallet on the game and still not built our dream deck.