The Biggest Issue with the new Walkers

Mburn7

As I was playing the current iteration of Hour of Revelation, I had a bit of a revelation myself.

The reason the low level walker exploit in events is so bad is also the reason all of the new planeswalkers are so much more powerful than their predecessors: Low Level Mana Gains.

The new walkers start at level 1 with their primary colors mostly maxed out and their abilities are basically the same between level 2 and level 4.  The easiest example is Samut, who leveled in the 20's gets +3 or +4 in green and red, first ability gives double strike (at max level it's +2/+2 and double strike), and second ability gives berzerker and afflict to one creature (at max level it affects all creatures).  My level 30 Samut is able to fairly easily beat level 60 walkers in events (although I do occasionally win too fast to get some secondaries.  Yup, too fast)

I know when Sahili came out she was similarly powerful and utilized at low levels, as is/was Nahiri...ect

For comparison, OG Nissa didn't get her final green match upgrade until level 60, and the origins walkers (and the Zendikar walkers) all start off about neutral in all colors (usually +1 in mains and -1 or -2 in opposing colors).  Their abilities were also changed (I know OG Gideon's first definitely was) in order to (in the dev's words) encourage players to level them up. 

The new walkers give no such incentive to level up, as they are almost equally powerful at level 20 as they are at level 60.  And if you have a powerful level 20 walker to use in events, it increases your ability to exploit the terrible matchmaking, on purpose or by accident.  Also, its a lot less fun to level up the new walkers because most of the leveling bonuses aren't actually an improvement.

To make a long post short, the new walkers (especially the multicolored ones) should be balanced in their leveling.  Its probably too hard to retroactively do it for the ones that are currently out, but maybe this can be taken into account when new walkers are being designed.  Leveling up a walker should be something we WANT to do, not a chore we just do for completion or a way to spend excess runes.  And then the matchmaking exploit won't be as big of a deal, since there won't be many low level walkers entered in the first place.

Skiglass6

Easy fix to the exploit. Tier the ribbon rewards like they did in QB. The lower the opponent you face the less ribbons you get for the win. But this would require revamping the leveling process from the antiquated system of the runes. In the beginning it worked. There wasn't a lot of PWs and not much to do except earn runes through story mode or QB. 

Maybe make the leveling process a run through the story mode gauntlet for each new PW. I always wanted them to give us additional rewards for each PW through story mode similar to when they opened it from winning, to winning with each color.  It would have given me a reason to keep playing the story mode. 

I also thought if you purchased the PW when it first came out, you would get it maxed level. If they do make these changes, I think they should release the new PWs a week before it is in a forced node for an event. I don't think it should become a pay-to-win situation. 

Mburn7

There's nothing wrong with the runes system, except for maybe how they are useless once you're done leveling.
If you're really desperate there's always the "convert duplicates" option (for now).

Making event rewards like QB would definitely not work, unless you did it only at platinum (and maybe gold) level and didn't have exclusive nodes until a few months after the walker was released to the vault, to give people fair time to level up if they want to.

Unless the new devs are going to be doing things drastically differently, massive changes like that won't happen.  I like to think that a simple change like adjusting the leveling of the mana gains (and possibly abilities) would be enough, and its easy enough to implement going forward.

Your last paragraph contradicts itself, though.  If walkers were bought at max level it would be inherently pay-to-win.  So far they've done a fair job at avoiding that (Olivia notwithstanding), lets keep it that way

Sirchombli

I feel like this may actually be a concession to the fact that runes are in shorter supply than they were when the older pws were released. A level 25 elspeth is, at the very least, playable. Something like a level 25 dovin would struggle in events. Plus the low level gains on the older pws were just tedious. Right now I have a level 21 ajani vengeant. He's useless to me until I get him in shape. The newer ones make you want to play with them right away. 

blacklotus

simplest solution is to fix the matchmaking system, rather than come up with new rewards tiers or points system for winning at different pw levels.

shteev

The new walkers making 6 mana a pop at very low levels is a problem, I think. Personally I put it down to negligence, but I suppose they could have been purposely designed that way.

The fact that Nissa 3 can cast a Rishkar's Expertise with either a blue or green match at level 20 is nearly as stupid as the fact that Rishkar's Expertise exists.

Gilesclone

If they're trying to improve the viability of low level PWs I can see why they've gone this way. But frankly, I don't they really gave it much thought. 

wereotter

I suspect they consider the large mana detriment on off color matches to even that out, but with Nissa and Sammut both having green identities, thus negates that as you can just convert gems to on color matches.

I'm withholding judgment until I see how this effects Huatli.

shteev

I hear Elspeth is a bit of a monster with mana. How does she handle at low levels?

Ohboy

Her mana gains are average, but her skill 1 ability is only slightly worse at lvl 1 than at lvl 4.

I've been playing low level elspeth in totp a lot. It holds its own against lvl 60 Nahiris surprisingly well. 

Mainloop25

She actually doesn't get a ton better between level 40 and 60. Mostly because her flavor is more or less the same in terms of mana gain, and her abilities are somewhat mediocre. 

hawkyh1

taking the example of samut, her 1st and 2nd
abilities are perfectly fine at lower levels. her
3rd ability(I believe) double the damage by
upgrading from level 2 to level 4. my samut is
at level 40, which cost me about 60k runes. to
level her to level 60 would cost another ~100k
runes. apart from converting dupes, runes is
mostly accumulated by playing. to level all my
planeswalkers from level 40 to level 60 requires
a commitment of time that is more than double
of my current allocated time available to play.
it then comes down to how much are you willing
to take away from more casual players to give
to those who have more time to play.

HH