Planeswalker tier list to help with the upcoming sale

Nalthazar

Hey all,

I put together three tier list videos to help you determine which walkers you should buy during the great holiday Planeswalker sale. The videos are broken into a mono color walker video, a dual color walker video, and tri color + colorless walker video. For players who already own most of the Planeswalkers then you'll probably just want to fill in walkers for your collection or for specific walkers you've been wanting to try. For players with less Planeswalkers at their disposal this should be very helpful. If any of you have any extra comments about how the walkers should be tiered let me know!

Mono Color:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEpOumz4eXY&t=665s

Dual Color:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG5RZblkYME

Tri Color + Colorless:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P81OPhYjImg

Zethish

Cheers for the lists.
Give Kaya a chance, I think she might surprise you
From my experience, she's terrific in grindy games. I find that all her abilities are useful at least once during long games and the the third ability will eventually take down anyone.

Nalthazar

I'm actually REALLY excited about Kaya. I wound up getting Kenrith to make a review of him and Kaya + Happily Ever After seems like an amazing combo. She might change in the rankings once I give her a proper chance.

Zethish

Now that I'd like to see!

jtwood

Zethish said:

Cheers for the lists.
Give Kaya a chance, I think she might surprise you
From my experience, she's terrific in grindy games. I find that all her abilities are useful at least once during long games and the the third ability will eventually take down anyone.

Kaya was the first one I snapped up in the sale. Her mana gains are great, the color combo is underserved, and her abilities are very relevant and impactful. Granted, her abilities also constrain her deck building options, but that's not a huge problem.

Zethish

Just tried Kaya with Ever After against Bolas and it worked like a charm 

Stormcrow

I wouldn't have made it through the early game without Gideon 1 and Ob Nix. (Before there was Bolas the Ravager, Ob Nix was the original "win using only planeswalker abilities" guy.) Gideon 1's gains absolutely suck, it's true, but his abilities are amazing, and when you have a limited selection of decent creatures and control cards the ability to give out permanent evergreens is phenomenal. He may have been made obsolete by Gideon Blackblade but I'd honestly recommend either one to a newbie over Elspeth; when your card collection is mostly bad cards, the ability to make your bad creatures be better and do more is much more important than the ability to cast lots of bad cards quickly, especially in mono-white where your card drawing is gonna be limited.

I don't think Vivian 1 and Vivian 2 are the same tier at all. As far as I can tell from playing around with her, Vivian 2 is E or even F tier. (Sure, maybe there are a couple specific mythics make her much more useful, but that's true of Tezz 1 also.) Vivian 1 on the other hand has three quite useful (albeit pricey!) abilities and if it weren't for the existence of Nissa, Worldwaker she'd be the best general-purpose mono-green walker around.

I get that you don't like him, but Sorin, even with his pathetic hit point total, is phenomenal for a lot of the PvE stuff in this game where you're essentially just racing against a boss with very little control and 500 hit points. Which is less common than it used to be but...still pretty frequent.

I still think Nahiri is the most overrated planeswalker around.

I like Ugin a lot better than you do, but I will admit that most of the decks I've made with him would work just as well under Karn (though not the one that zaps my own Citizen tokens, and I do get a kick out of that one). However I do think his reduced rune cost to level should be a factor when recommending him to newbies. He may not be anywhere near Karn's level but he offers a lot of flexibility for his rune cost.

Also thinking of rune costs, I'd also drop Bolas 3 at least a tier just because he's so expensive for a meh planeswalker...mediocrity is a lot more forgiveable for an 80k rune price (lookin' at you, Mu Yanling) than for a ridiculous 320k rune cost. For the price of leveling Dragon-God, a newer player could max out 4 monocolor or two dual-color PWs and that's probably going to help them out more almost regardless of which other planeswalkers they put those runes in.

QuiksilverHg

Question. Does anybody know if Vraska’s S1 works with no creatures in play? Trying to decide between Vraska Queen and G/W Huatli

Quantius

Stormcrow said:

I wouldn't have made it through the early game without Gideon 1 and Ob Nix. (Before there was Bolas the Ravager, Ob Nix was the original "win using only planeswalker abilities" guy.) Gideon 1's gains absolutely suck, it's true, but his abilities are amazing, and when you have a limited selection of decent creatures and control cards the ability to give out permanent evergreens is phenomenal. He may have been made obsolete by Gideon Blackblade but I'd honestly recommend either one to a newbie over Elspeth; when your card collection is mostly bad cards, the ability to make your bad creatures be better and do more is much more important than the ability to cast lots of bad cards quickly, especially in mono-white where your card drawing is gonna be limited.

I don't think Vivian 1 and Vivian 2 are the same tier at all. As far as I can tell from playing around with her, Vivian 2 is E or even F tier. (Sure, maybe there are a couple specific mythics make her much more useful, but that's true of Tezz 1 also.) Vivian 1 on the other hand has three quite useful (albeit pricey!) abilities and if it weren't for the existence of Nissa, Worldwaker she'd be the best general-purpose mono-green walker around.

I get that you don't like him, but Sorin, even with his pathetic hit point total, is phenomenal for a lot of the PvE stuff in this game where you're essentially just racing against a boss with very little control and 500 hit points. Which is less common than it used to be but...still pretty frequent.

I still think Nahiri is the most overrated planeswalker around.

I like Ugin a lot better than you do, but I will admit that most of the decks I've made with him would work just as well under Karn (though not the one that zaps my own Citizen tokens, and I do get a kick out of that one). However I do think his reduced rune cost to level should be a factor when recommending him to newbies. He may not be anywhere near Karn's level but he offers a lot of flexibility for his rune cost.

Also thinking of rune costs, I'd also drop Bolas 3 at least a tier just because he's so expensive for a meh planeswalker...mediocrity is a lot more forgiveable for an 80k rune price (lookin' at you, Mu Yanling) than for a ridiculous 320k rune cost. For the price of leveling Dragon-God, a newer player could max out 4 monocolor or two dual-color PWs and that's probably going to help them out more almost regardless of which other planeswalkers they put those runes in.

Vivian 2 is only second to Nissa WW in mono G. She's the stompy queen while Nissa is the token queen. Her A1 will double buff a creature if it's your only one (because it's both your first AND last creature). So almost right away you can drop a low cost creature and give it +8/+8 and trample. If you're running converters and card draw with big fatties, she's a mono G version of Brokhan, you just exile the creatures from your hand and hit A3 and drop them into play with +2/+2 and haste.

Sorin 1 is pretty low tier these days. Slow and low HP with abilities that require a lot of set up. You can easily get lifelink from other sources, hell, his vanguard is very popular because of this. If you have any desire for BW, you get Kaya. If you want a Sorin, get the Mono B version, he's way better if you like vamp tribal.

Nahiri is absolutely overrated. She has strong abilities, but Boros is just not that strong of a color combo in MTGPQ. Blue and Green are the kings, Black has a lot to offer and then Red and White are supporting players. Putting them together inherently makes a PW that's easy to outclass.

Ugin is definitely amazing. And while Karn helps you dig for pieces while buffing his gains, Ugin is a midrange/long game champ. Once he's rolling he's basically got BSZ on tap that you can build around to have it up basically every turn.

Bolas 3 is a tri-color PWer. That makes him automatically top tier, esp since it includes blue. Also his abilities are really strong. Kaya has to build up firepower to use her A3. Bolas 3 has 30+ damage to the face ready to go, it's a great game closer, it can shave off 2-3 turns easily. His A1 is super underrated, draw 2 and exile a card from Opp hand and create a token that gives you 2 loyalty when Opp uses a loyalty ability. I usually favor him over the other Bolas boys in legacy since it's a faster format and his A1 helps accelerate your deck since legacy has all the mana and cheat into play cards.

Stormcrow

QuiksilverHg said:

Question. Does anybody know if Vraska’s S1 works with no creatures in play? Trying to decide between Vraska Queen and G/W Huatli

If you don't have a reinforcement to lose, you can still activate it and get 4 life. You won't draw a card and gain 3 mana unless you have a reinforcement to lose, though. G/W Huatli is definitely the better planeswalker overall, though Vraska 2 is more unique and has some niche potential whereas Huatli, as Nalthazar says, has a lot of overlap with Tamiyo in terms of uses.

Stormcrow

Sorin 1 is pretty low tier these days. Slow and low HP with abilities that require a lot of set up. You can easily get lifelink from other sources, hell, his vanguard is very popular because of this. If you have any desire for BW, you get Kaya. If you want a Sorin, get the Mono B version, he's way better if you like vamp tribal.

You don't get Sorin for lifelink (he doesn't even give out lifelink?), you get him for an ability that gives +4/+0 to all your creatures on a conditional that's even easier to trigger 6+ times a turn than Jace 2's ultimate is. Sometimes you just want a board full of cheap guys buffed to 100+ power, and Sorin's the easiest way to get there.

Mono black Sorin looks like garbage to me, but I haven't even tried to play around with him yet. All my best vampires rotated out with Ixalan and half of them literally couldn't be run in mono-black anyways.

Bolas 3 is a tri-color PWer. That makes him automatically top tier, esp since it includes blue. Also his abilities are really strong. Kaya has to build up firepower to use her A3. Bolas 3 has 30+ damage to the face ready to go, it's a great game closer, it can shave off 2-3 turns easily. His A1 is super underrated, draw 2 and exile a card from Opp hand and create a token that gives you 2 loyalty when Opp uses a loyalty ability. I usually favor him over the other Bolas boys in legacy since it's a faster format and his A1 helps accelerate your deck since legacy has all the mana and cheat into play cards.

If you just say "all tri-color PWs are top-tier" then there's no way to evaluate how he compares to the other tri-color PWs, and he's just worse than the other Bolases (Boli?), especially Ravager. I wish his 3rd at least counted reinforcements of legendaries, then you could at least pull some entertaining shenanigans with Squee or Sai, Master Thopterist.

Quantius

I know sorin doesn't give lifelink, his 2nd and 3rd abilities trigger off of it. Weird to compare him to Jace, but drawing a lot is way easier than gaining life (not that either are particularly hard). However, that doesn't make Sorin not sucky.

Well, that's just how it is. Having access to three colors is inherently superior to having access to less than three. I'll take Bolas 3 and Bolas 1 are not that dissimilar. NB3 leans more towards control and combo, NB1 leans towards control and aggro. Ravager is top notch for control and is my favorite Bolas.

Nalthazar

I think this is one of the wonderful things about the game. There is a lot of room for opinion. People have different play styles and that causes players to prefer different cards and Planeswalkers. 

Nahiri is great for newer players with small collections. White has in my opinion the best uncommon removal options in the game and has a lot of little lifelink creatures. The buff power that Nahiri gives to them makes it so you can stay in a game for a lot longer than you can with other Planeswalkers. For people who have Razia, I think that Razia with Nahiri is one of the best burst combos in standard for quick PvP matches. You only need 15 loyalty to get to Nahiri's third and then with a burn spell you ping your opponent for 90 damage. On top of that, burn cards are useful as removal too so it isn't like you're clogging your deck with bad cards. 

I see life as a resource like mana in Magic. Sorin having so little life in conjunction with mediocre mana gains and then what are two of the worst colors for mana gain and card draw makes me really dislike Sorin. Furthermore his third only buffs power, not toughness too, which makes the creatures more susceptible to removal. Sorin can do some big and really cool things, but due to his life, colors, and mana bonuses he isn't able to do it at the consistency of other walkers. I have tried him many times over and I have never found a deck with him that I would rather play using him than with another Planeswalker. 

I may be a bit high on Elspeth, and I am definitely jaded from having played her with Luminarch's Ascension and Fall of Thran before they rotated. An angel token deck was just so easy to pull off, and triggering the activated gems with a ton of pure white conversion and her abilities made her a top tier Planeswalker for players who owned most of the cards. Different walkers are better for players with different sized collections. It makes it hard to judge them. Some Planeswalkers are great for newer players, but become less useful for players who own most of the cards as they have cards that will achieve what some of the walkers can do, but in better ways. To the same extent, some Planeswalkers are great for players with larger collections as they can take better advantage of certain abilities, but aren't as good for players with fewer cards at their disposal. 

TomB

Meh...Maybe it's that I've been around a while, but I still use Sorin from time to time in a lifelink/first strike kind of deck, where his 3rd often turns into a finisher and I usually end up finishing the match with a full life total myself. Truth though, is that it's been a while since I dragged him out and tried to play him. These days it's all about the Boli, Tammy, and Brokhan, with a side order of Ral for the objectives that require 3 spells in a turn to complete and an occasional appearance by Elspeth when my angels need to fly...

Edit: Oh, and personally I think that while Nahiri is terrific in a creature-oriented build I still use Redjani when I need to use spells/supports to take down an opponent like Bolas...

Stormcrow

Nalthazar said:

An angel token deck was just so easy to pull off, and triggering the activated gems with a ton of pure white conversion and her abilities made her a top tier Planeswalker for players who owned most of the cards. Different walkers are better for players with different sized collections. It makes it hard to judge them. Some Planeswalkers are great for newer players, but become less useful for players who own most of the cards as they have cards that will achieve what some of the walkers can do, but in better ways. To the same extent, some Planeswalkers are great for players with larger collections as they can take better advantage of certain abilities, but aren't as good for players with fewer cards at their disposal. 

Totally agree! I just figured that the players who own most of the cards also already own most of the Planeswalkers, and aren't as likely to need guidance on which ones to buy.

I have often thought that something that would help early/midgame players with Planeswalker selection though, is knowing exactly which specific cards can take a Planeswalker to another level. Like Djinn and/or Rupture Spire with Brokhan, Ghalta with Garruk 1, or the most extreme example, Omniscience with Tezz 1 (which effectively makes him a completely different, much more powerful Planeswalker), even less combo-specific things like Electrodominance with Jaya, or Vanguard Nissa really being the main card that I've found makes Vraska 2 start to feel useful. But I haven't really had the time to put something like that together and I don't have every card, anyways.

Nalthazar

Stormcrow said:

Nalthazar said:

An angel token deck was just so easy to pull off, and triggering the activated gems with a ton of pure white conversion and her abilities made her a top tier Planeswalker for players who owned most of the cards. Different walkers are better for players with different sized collections. It makes it hard to judge them. Some Planeswalkers are great for newer players, but become less useful for players who own most of the cards as they have cards that will achieve what some of the walkers can do, but in better ways. To the same extent, some Planeswalkers are great for players with larger collections as they can take better advantage of certain abilities, but aren't as good for players with fewer cards at their disposal. 

Totally agree! I just figured that the players who own most of the cards also already own most of the Planeswalkers, and aren't as likely to need guidance on which ones to buy.

I have often thought that something that would help early/midgame players with Planeswalker selection though, is knowing exactly which specific cards can take a Planeswalker to another level. Like Djinn and/or Rupture Spire with Brokhan, Ghalta with Garruk 1, or the most extreme example, Omniscience with Tezz 1 (which effectively makes him a completely different, much more powerful Planeswalker), even less combo-specific things like Electrodominance with Jaya, or Vanguard Nissa really being the main card that I've found makes Vraska 2 start to feel useful. But I haven't really had the time to put something like that together and I don't have every card, anyways.

You would be surprised. A lot of my friends who have just as large of collections if not larger than me are missing some Planeswalkers that I wouldn't want to be missing from my collection. As it stands I do not even have all of the Planeswalkers. There are a number of them that are just so outclassed or so mediocre that I didn't want to use crystals or runes to buy/boost them. I hope they change more Planeswalkers over time like they did with Kaya and Arlin. They are really fun now. 

I like the idea of what you are saying with regards to compiling information of cards that make certain Planeswalkers better. I try to incorporate that to some degree in some of the videos I make. It will be highlighted more on one of my new series that I am working on.