The Value of "premium" planeswalkers?

tdellaringa

I currently only play the 5 base planeswalkers. I have notices a definite uptick in the amount of the "premium" planeswalkers in QB and in Events. I'd say it seems close to 50%. Every time I enter one of these battles, I feel like I am already at a distinct disadvantage due to their abilities. A good example is getting 12 mana for a 3-gem match. I will always be in a mana hole to that planeswalker.

I certainly win the majority of those meetings, but I still lose more than I would like. I am thinking of saving up crystals and moving to get one of those. I'm not sure which yet. But I guess my question is how many of the more serious players use a premium planeswalker as their primary? (Aside from Nodes, or events where you have to use certain PWs.)

Do they have as big as an advantage as it seems?

Rootbreaker

I think they have pretty big advantages, even if their only advantage were their mana generation, they almost all have better mana generation than the origins 5.

Some of their abilities are pretty sweet too though.

blacklotus

nope. my Favourite pw is Liliana. And I can win against any AI controlled lvl60 premium pw.

with the right deck n play to your pw strength, you can win any game.

white battle forged Gideon also got massively strengthened recently because of one new soi card: runaway carriage.

blacklotus

and I love playing against Koth.
he is easy to lock down.
just deny him of red gems.

even better, every Koth deck I come across seem to use mana heavy cards.

makes it even easier for me to lock down.

ReddMaxx

blacklotus wrote:

and I love playing against Koth.
he is easy to lock down.
just deny him of red gems.

even better, every Koth deck I come across seem to use mana heavy cards.

makes it even easier for me to lock down.

Yeah the AI is stupid because it is harder than that to lock down Koth. You just needs to match 2 3-gem loyalty matches and his cascade begins. If I don't see any chance of red gem matching, then I just match loyalty gems. Once the cascades start it is all over.

AI will take the red gem matching away from Koth but not the loyalty gems so you only need six loyalty to start cascade. And unless you are very unlucky you will continue to cascade until you beat your opponent. I say one out of 20 games I get mana screwed. You have to have no red and loyalty gems on the board and when you do cascade you have to get so unlucky not to match anything. That rarely happens. And if it does you can come back and win if your opponent doesn't finish you off quickly. Because red can clear the board pretty easy and have biggies out there in a round or two.

Redd

Upstartes

I have Ajani and Kiora. I tend to play them a lot, and typically build the decks to take advantage of or complement their abilities. The mana generation for Ajani is nice. Kiora's gem-matching mana production isn't as forgiving, but of course her first ability can more than make up for that. I also enjoy playing the 2-color PWs for the opportunity to build 2-color decks.

As far as single-color, premium PWs go, I have Ob Nixilis and Tesseret. I feel Tesseret is far superior to Jace right now because Jace's first two abilities got over-balanced and are still lack-luster, and Tesseret has better mana production. Ob Nixilis has the same mana production as Liliana, but his abilities can be just brutal.

I do, however, still play Nissa and Gideon frequently. They still seem comparable. I rarely play Chandra anymore, usually going with Ajani when I want red. I'm starting to play Liliana more since SoI came out, as some things in that set work well with her.

glggwp

just dont buy sarkhan

jace used to be THE BEST... they need to reverse the nerf, as it was very unnecessary given all the crazy pws they pushed out lately...

Mcjordan

glggwp wrote:

just dont buy sarkhan

Sarkhan is awesome! He is incredible if you have a dragon or two. His second skill sucks, but his third is a game winner. His ability to use black's cheap removal and red's big creatures and damage spells is a brutal combo.

tm00

They are all better than the normal one except maybe dragonless sarkhans and clueless tezzerets.

The basic ones aren't strictly worse than them however, and all have some niche.( I want a jace with exert influence,welcome to the fold and skaab goliah)

tdellaringa

I DO actually have Jace with Exert Influence, and it's awesome.

madwren

Note that there's really no such thing as dragonless Sarkhan, because he can make his own dragons.

Mana generation really dictates a lot in this game. The 3/1/1 allotment of the originals really suffers in comparison to some of the others.

Barrelrolla

I loved Sarkhan even when I had only one dragon. His mana gains are good because whatever he matches is always at least +1. And now, when I have all 4 dragons (I know ****) he is my favorite planeswalker. Black destroy spells, red dragons, use only third ability, win in 2 minutes.
If you don't have dragons, his second ability can create them, but that means wasting 9 loyalty for a dragon, then probably wasting 9 for a reinforce and the waiting for 18? to cast his third ability, so it will be waaay too slow.
But having even one dragon + mirrorpool is enough for him to be great.

ReddMaxx

Sarkhan rocks. I have a couple of the dragons and that is all you need. Tyrant is the best at 9/8. The secret is to have one or two buff spells. I like to use sure strike. It helps in a lot of ways but it helps in the third ability.

You cast Tyrant, buff with sure strike, and have a support like brawler or call of the full moon and you have like 15 attack and that will do 75 damage to the other guy ( 4 times 15 plus 15 for his attack). If you have a hellkite out you are doing like 105 in one turn.

The idea is to charge up tyrant and hold him until your opponent cast a creature or two. Clear the board one turn, then on the next use his third ability and buff him. You are doing like 70 - 100 points depending on what you go with.

I don't have dragon master or avaricious but I pretty much get a dragon by the time the 3rd ability is charged up. I run Omnath and akoum to give it a bit of varity.

But if you don't have at least two dragons then he plays slow. I used him when I had one dragon and/or made dragons with his ability and you never got the third ability off. It was two slow. I was going to give up on him but now that I have 2 dragons, one being Tyrant, it works. Now with two dragons I get it to work almost every game.


Redd

ReddMaxx

Just to add to the Jace discussion vs mulit PW:

If you have the right cards Jace rocks. I got lucky and got the crush of tentacles. I built that deck several ways and with crush and his 3rd ability you wipe the board and lock him down.

All you need is creature destroy and/or bounce, some draw ability and crush. I win like 99% of the time and it beats the stupid runaway carriage. If you want to be mean then just add sphinx and they can't destroy crush directly or disable him. His third ability locks the game down.

I got Welcome to the fold and that is fun. I am going to post some pics of what Welcome to the fold and crush does. I don't know if it is a bug but I took 2 of my opponents white creatures then crushed and I got both of them back in my hand. HAHA a blue only deck with 2 white cards in his hand. I assume if this was like paper mtg it should have went to his hand or graveyard. The wording is usually "to owners ...". Not in mtgpq it goes to whoever had it in play. Got to love it.

Jace is not fast but with 2 or 3 mana supports (shrine of ancient gods), creature destruction (frog and another one), and a board wipe (crush), it is a hard deck to beat.

Of course Kiora is faster with the same cards but Jace third ability has lock down potential and if used right they won't cast another spell before crush finishes them.

Redd

chispito

Re: Jace
All of the PWs can dominate with the right deck. Unfortunately, Jace with amazing cards is no more effective than other PWs with decent cards, and considerably slower. Kiora is better in every possible way, because mana starving your opponent is slower and generally less effective than simply running your opponent over with crazy cascades.

Shadow_Wraith

Sarkhan is awesome. I bought him for a dragon deck, but only have ine dragon so I switched him to my straight black zombie, minus keeping demolish. He has all positive mana creation, he has card draw and if you get in a hole with creatures, you can convert weaker or disadvantaged creatures inyo dragons. Plus, turn against, and similar cards, combod with a 5 gem match allows you to turn your opponents creatures into dragons, which remain in your control indefinitly. He is definitly undervalued.

Buret0

tdellaringa wrote:

I currently only play the 5 base planeswalkers. I have notices a definite uptick in the amount of the "premium" planeswalkers in QB and in Events. I'd say it seems close to 50%. Every time I enter one of these battles, I feel like I am already at a distinct disadvantage due to their abilities. A good example is getting 12 mana for a 3-gem match. I will always be in a mana hole to that planeswalker.

You have to focus on red denial and minimizing possible cascades. The AI is predicable, even if the board is not, so you can give yourself a higher percentage of making red opportunities not an option on the AI's turn. The dual color planeswalkers should have bigger penalties to their non-primary colors, similar to Koth's.

Koth is my only non-basic planeswalker btw.

I like the diversity a big hitter like Koth brings. I just wish the red game freeze bug would be fixed maybe a timeout built in to the AI's turn until they can figure out the root cause of the bug. (though I've noticed the game freeze also in the story modes when the AI plays the "kill all token creatures" card, which is not against a Red deck, it seems to be another unrelated bug that has cost me a few victories.

Buret0

My biggest beef is that they gave higher HP, stronger mana generation, and stronger abilities to the new characters.

The balance needs to be less health for more strength (or conversely, more health for less strength). Too much powercreep to give both more health and overall strength, especially in the dual color planeswalkers who have not only more diverse mana opportunities, but also more deck diversity.