Gratz Oktagon on an excellent PW design in Sarkhan

Kinesia

Congratulations Oktagon, Sarkhan Fireblood is extremely well designed without being broken.

Every other previous case of trying to enable PWs to use big creatures actually just sped up their ability to do _everything_ and so ended up abusable in other situations.

Sarkhan is now _perfect_ at playing with big creatures like his signature dragons or dinosaurs or others too, but it can't be broken for other things.

It's great.

NinjaE

Agreed. Solid, fun PW.

Mburn7

Great, now I need to get another mono-red walker?  I just got Jaya because everyone said she was so great (I mean she is pretty fun, but that's besides the point).

I don't even like mono red in PQ because it never seems to work right.

FindingHeart8

Mburn7 said:

Great, now I need to get another mono-red walker?  I just got Jaya because everyone said she was so great (I mean she is pretty fun, but that's besides the point).

I don't even like mono red in PQ because it never seems to work right.

I did the same, and she was great when Hour of Devastation as in standard.

Now she's on the shelf, being useless.

But hey!  At least they're only 295 crystals eventually

FindingHeart8

@Kinesia what's his lvl 60 do again?

SinisterOne

I agree Sarkhan2 is a great Planeswalker and well balanced around big creatures.

But I must disagree on the comments calling Jaya useless. She is a beast as well. She is probably my best level 60 walker but a lot of that is in her deck construction. I run a deck that runs 1 spell and this can make her first ability on par with Bolas1's. In Legacy events her 1 spell is Unlicensed Disintegration which she can fetch and cast automatically. Of course in Standard this ability is weaker because I either run Firecraft or Fiery Finish which won't kill everything but still packs a punch. With five gem converters in her deck (memorial of genius and war, dragon's hoard, and shivan reef and sulfur falls) she gets nuts. 

I think Jaya and Sarkhan2 are superior to Koth.

Brigby

FindingHeart8 said:

Kinesia what's his lvl 60 do again?

Sorry for hijacking this question, but I figured I could answer this one real quick.

Sarkhan, Fireblood's Ability 3 (Dragonkin's Call - 21 Loyalty) at level 60 creates 4 Dragon tokens and gives them Haste. Each dragon token inherently is a 5/5 and has Flying.

If you want to check out the full details, you can look at his Planeswalker Details page HERE

wereotter

I agree, Sarkhan is solid and fun. He's a little more reliable on his mana than Koth, though if you're not wanting to collect all of them, you don't need him if you have Koth already. Though I will say definitely more enjoyable to play.

The new Liliana, however, seems a little more disappointing, maybe because you can't see what she throws into the graveyard. But also because most the zombies that care about the graveyard aren't in standard anymore.

Aeroplane

wereotter said:

I agree, Sarkhan is solid and fun. He's a little more reliable on his mana than Koth, though if you're not wanting to collect all of them, you don't need him if you have Koth already. Though I will say definitely more enjoyable to play.

The new Liliana, however, seems a little more disappointing, maybe because you can't see what she throws into the graveyard. But also because most the zombies that care about the graveyard aren't in standard anymore.

I find Liliana quite versatile as the grave digger. Josu ,Vona and Dari- 3 grave fetchers dark Petition, Rise and Rebirth- Dowsing dagger, rupture spire, dragons hoard and Vonas hunger .

Mind you, I only use the first skill to dump creatures , but she can keep bringing them back. There are various combos with Josu. Flyers and Knights work well with the dowsing dagger. Switch Dari for another Vamp and add call to the feast.

Similar to Vraskas deck switching in Pack and growing Rites.

Card draw and support destruction are her weakness.

SinisterOne

The new Liliana has synergy with Bone Dragon also since her first will put eight cards in your graveyard at its highest which means Bone Dragon will return if killed. Although Darigaaz would be better than BD. Running both in her deck with as mentioned some res spells and removal and she could be a beast. 

I wouldn't spend cash on her without having Darigaaz though. Which I haven't pulled or crafted him yet. I do have Bone Dragon but his interaction with her isn't enough for a cash purchase but when she pops up for crystals I'll probably get her.

Now, Viv is who I really want..  She just looks like she'll be the best of the Monocolored m19 walkers.

Stalker

SinisterOne said:

The new Liliana has synergy with Bone Dragon also since her first will put eight cards in your graveyard at its highest which means Bone Dragon will return if killed. Although Darigaaz would be better than BD. Running both in her deck with as mentioned some res spells and removal and she could be a beast. 

I wouldn't spend cash on her without having Darigaaz though. Which I haven't pulled or crafted him yet. I do have Bone Dragon but his interaction with her isn't enough for a cash purchase but when she pops up for crystals I'll probably get her.

Now, Viv is who I really want..  She just looks like she'll be the best of the Monocolored m19 walkers.

So exiling the graveyard would darigaaz get exiled before he can pop back out? Doesn’t seem the greatest option doing such a huge exiling od ones grave yard for one creature when the opponent has many exile creature options or steal

Kinesia

FindingHeart8 said:

Mburn7 said:

Great, now I need to get another mono-red walker?  I just got Jaya because everyone said she was so great (I mean she is pretty fun, but that's besides the point).

I don't even like mono red in PQ because it never seems to work right.

I did the same, and she was great when Hour of Devastation as in standard.

Now she's on the shelf, being useless.

But hey!  At least they're only 295 crystals eventually

I agree with both of you, mono-red is in a bad place right now especially in terms of dealing with the huge creatures of others.

To some extent you need to ignore their side of the board and race...

I hope this situation gets fixed soon, it really needs to be!

So, while I have a lot of fun playing Sarkhan he absolutely _does_ get the occasional unavoidable hammering, so I'm not sure I'd play him in a proper PvP event... But the design is still great, it's the current environment that is a pain!

Kinesia

Aeroplane said:

wereotter said:

I agree, Sarkhan is solid and fun. He's a little more reliable on his mana than Koth, though if you're not wanting to collect all of them, you don't need him if you have Koth already. Though I will say definitely more enjoyable to play.

The new Liliana, however, seems a little more disappointing, maybe because you can't see what she throws into the graveyard. But also because most the zombies that care about the graveyard aren't in standard anymore.

I find Liliana quite versatile as the grave digger. Josu ,Vona and Dari- 3 grave fetchers dark Petition, Rise and Rebirth- Dowsing dagger, rupture spire, dragons hoard and Vonas hunger .

Mind you, I only use the first skill to dump creatures , but she can keep bringing them back. There are various combos with Josu. Flyers and Knights work well with the dowsing dagger. Switch Dari for another Vamp and add call to the feast.

Similar to Vraskas deck switching in Pack and growing Rites.

Card draw and support destruction are her weakness.

I'm playing Josu Vess and knight's in Lil rather than all Zombies and it's fun but doesn't really use her abilities heaps. (Though when I level her up further so the 2nd has the "reinforcements" bit that'll get better!)

In Legacy she becomes so much better with Grind/Dust and so many more Zombies and Gisa and Geralt (which I don't have). I would say legacy is much more her thing right now...

Kinesia

Brigby said:

FindingHeart8 said:

Kinesia what's his lvl 60 do again?

Sorry for hijacking this question, but I figured I could answer this one real quick.

Sarkhan, Fireblood's Ability 3 (Dragonkin's Call - 21 Loyalty) at level 60 creates 4 Dragon tokens and gives them Haste. Each dragon token inherently is a 5/5 and has Flying.

If you want to check out the full details, you can look at his Planeswalker Details page HERE

Thanks Brigby.

I find I mostly use his 2nd, sometimes the first, the 3rd is only on rare occasions, though the haste part did win 1 game for me when I would otherwise have died next turn!

Enygma6

I've made some entertaining Dragon-centric builds on both the new Sarkhan and Liliana.  
Sarkhan's 3rd is great for pumping up Lathliss.  His 2nd is awesome with Ball Lightning.  And he can even use Reliquary Tower somewhat effectively (with a bit of additional Loyalty generators), getting his 1st and 2nd ability to feed mana to your creatures so you can still cast big ones in a single turn match.

With Liliana, I've done the Bone Dragon / Darigaaz deck combo.  Add in Isareth and Primeval's Glorious Rebirth, and it's tons of fun.  With that deck, only her 1st ability is useable, but it serves purposes of giving Bone Dragon some fodder, as well as targets for the resurrectionists.