Many Planeswalkers are so powerful that they can just win games outright. Cards that can take them out (like Hero's Downfall or Vindicate) are upgraded in value. Shoot, I’ll sometimes run things like Hex Parasite or Aether Snap just to take out these dorks.
Just like tournament tables, at the kitchen table, these guys are forces to consider. They win, they dominate, and they are abused. Casual Magic Nights around the globe rely on them. But the ones that break the local Standard format go up against a different set of players, cards, and metagames in Casual Land. In multiplayer and/or Commander, formats and styles are different. Some ’Walkers improve with the transition, and some degrade. Others are still not that hot (Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded, I’m looking at you!)
Which are the best? Which ones have some to really punch above their weight? Which are the best allies for your next casual deck? Let’s take a look at the Top 10 Planeswalkers for Casual and Multiplayer, according to, well, me.
As always, I like to begin with ’Walkers that just missed the Top 10.
In my mind, Vraska is one of the most criminally underplayed Planeswalkers we've seen. Now, she's not going to be hitting the Top 10 list—that's why she's back here with an Honorable Mention—but she is close. More Golgari-colored decks would do well to run her. Let's begin with that middle ability, her variant of a Desert Twister. In fact, several Planeswalkers will hit the Top 10 in part because they can do precisely this: They can handle a wide variety of problems for you. Well, Vraska does the same, blowing up opposing permanents, including other Planeswalkers.
Then, she can protect herself with that underappreciated +1 No Mercy ability for herself. Swinging into her and losing your creature(s) weakens your own position. No one wants to volunteer. She forces the board to play a game of chicken. She builds up, and in multiplayer, people usually let her do so with aplomb. After all, you want to swing to take her out to prevent future Desert Twisters, but what you attack with will die, so there are multiple cards that can be taken out by her: the creatures and the permanents. Plus, she can ultimate out a few Assassins that can literally kill people. She is one of the few ’Walkers with an ultimate that will literally end the game. Reconsider her.
Honorable Mention #2 – Gideon Jura
I really like a mono-colored Planeswalker that plays into the natural strength of the color. What does white really want to do at the multiplayer table? Well, sometimes, it wants to swing and smash with weenies. And don't worry; we have #3 below to help with that! But often, you just want to sit back and play the control game. Play Day of Judgment and Path to Exile, and clean stuff off the table. So, when you want to play this controlling game, who is your friend? Gideon Jura. Very few can play the control game as well as Gideon can.
First, his free ultimate will allow you to swing for serious damage after clearing the way with your removal. Turn that Akroma's Vengeance into 6 damage to the face! You can also protect yourself by forcing folks to hit Gideon. If you have killed one or two dorks—or if you have Kor Haven or something—Gideon may not even take that much damage. Then, you can use him to destroy that tapped beater. As a result, he is one of the most synergetic Planeswalkers for his color.
This is not a review article for Vintage or Legacy. I am not detailing how these various Planeswalkers are in tournaments—just at the kitchen table. Jace, TMS is not bad in multiplayer. Having a Brainstorm every turn for free is certainly better than, say, Honden of Seeing Winds, which gives you just the card. And sure, you can use it to bounce a critter at sorcery speed (bounce is weaker in multiplayer than in duels), fateseal someone (worse when you have multiple opponents to fateseal), and such. So he's good, and he’s even better when someone synergizes the Brainstorming with things like fetch lands, tutors, and digging. But outside of that, he's just solid. He might be the most overplayed Planeswalker in multiplayer because he has such a lethal reputation elsewhere, and that drops significantly here.
Now, who made the Top 10?
I was very bullish on fellow Theros ’Walker Elspeth, Sun's Champion from the very beginning. But I was surprised by how well Xenagos played in multiplayer. It doesn't look like one of the more potent ’Walkers that've seen print. Hey, it just makes some mana like Garruk Wildspeaker or produces a 2/2 dork instead of a 3/3 one like Garruk, and both have an explosive, creature-oriented ultimate. But he plays a lot better. The mana-making almost always produces a quality amount of mana when you want it: 4, 5, 10, or whatever.
Second, the Satyr-production of the card is free, so you can literally make a 2/2 creature every turn until someone takes out Xenagos. That's a better level of creature production compared to other cheap ’Walkers, similar to what Garruk Relentless can do. (But that Garruk is suitably disappointing everywhere else, while the Satyr steals my heart and the show.) And between the mana ability and the Satyr spawning, you'll never reduce his loyalty counters, preparing for a large, juicy flip from those seven cards on top of your library. Xenagos ends up playing a lot more smoothly and powerfully than I suspected, and he warrants his spot.
There is something to be said for being a dumb, expensive ’Walker who drops down on the table and totally changes it. Sure, he costs 8 mana, and a prohibitive 6 of it is spread across three colors. But once he arrives, no one else can shine a light to the majesty of Bolas. You can steal those amazing creatures, destroy anything else, and smash-hammer someone with the ultimate. But I rarely get to that. Stealing and destroying are just too good in a multiplayer setting. In multiplayer, you often have enough time to be able to cast our draconic friend master, but Nicol Bolas is still prohibitive in many settings, and that keeps his rating down from being too crazy.
Some of the more expensive Planeswalkers give you tremendous value for the price. That's not to say that a 3-mana boss can't give you solid stuff, such as Liliana of the Veil or Domri Rade, but Wizards seems intentionally to push the power of the more expensive ’Walkers, and that gives us stuff like Garruk, Caller of Beats . . . er . . . Beasts. First of all, Garruk’s heavy mana cost is more manageable in green, and you can easily play him on turn four. When you do, you suddenly can drop any green creature for no mana. I've seen Woodfall Primus or the now-banned Sylvan Primordial off an early Garruk abuse a game. Out pops anything from Armada Wurm to Simic Sky Swallower. If it’s green, you can drop it. That alone makes him powerful.
Then, you have the almost-broken first ability. I'm sure I'm not the only one to occasionally Ancestral Recall three-outta-four of the cards flipped into my hand. And while I'm still dreaming the dream of a perfect quartet of creatures to flip, he has proven himself time and time again, drawing one or two creatures with consistency. (Which you can then either play or drop via his cool ability a turn later.) His emblem breaks the game open, like an upgraded Wild Pair that cannot be disenchanted. This guy is Nasty McNasterson.
The first Elspeth on our countdown is this fun lady. She immediately hits the board and begins spewing creatures every which way. Creatures are how most decks win. You attack and kill folks. Well, Elspeth makes a trio at a time, doing her best Verdant Force impression. And since we are in white, we are in the color of Crusade through Spear of Heliod and Mobilization through Field Marshal. It supports small little Soldiers like these in many ways. Since you are paying a bit more mana for this Elspeth, she helps out by bringing a whole team with her.
Then, she can get all Retribution of the Meek on the table to clean out the big guys, which, of course, will keep her own Soldiers-in-arms free and able to swing at a newly-cleaned board. And if these plans work, you might be able to pull off 7 loyalty to really amp up the team. (And note that she doesn't make your Soldiers so powerful that she would kill them.)
In Commander, Sorin Markov's second ability is his ultimate. It is a great leveler of life-gain and lifer tricks. It answers Oloro, Ageless Ascetic decks and ornery life-oriented tricks. Sorin blows through any major life total jankiness (not a real word, by the way) in order to simplify the game state. Because of that, in many metagames, Sorin is downright essential. In fact, often, all Sorin will do is arrive, swing a person down to a vulnerable life state, and then be destroyed forthwith. And yet, despite that, his first ability is actually very useful. A recurring Sorin's Thirst that can also hit a player is a very subtle ability over the long haul. You can gain quite a bit of traction with him, killing small guys and gaining just enough life at a time for it to matter. Sorin is both an anti-lifer card and a pro-lifer one at the same time! And everyone loves a Mindslaver activation to keep the table honest every now and then.
Now, what are the top five Planeswalkers?
The very thing that drops Nicol Bolas on this list elevates Karn. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is hard to find a home for due to the triple-mana cost. It's like comparing Sol Ring to Birds of Paradise. Which is the best mana accelerant in Alpha outside the Power Nine? It’s the one that can be used in any deck! Karn can be used anywhere, and that elevates his value. But what launches it is the simple fact that he shores up a traditional weakness of U/B/R. He is like the Nevinyrral's Disk of Planeswalkers. He exiles target permanent. There are some other entrants that can destroy certain permanents (Nicol Bolas and Vraska), but he exiles anything, with no targeting restriction. He is the Swords to Plowshares to their Terror.
In multiplayer, with many recursion-based hijinks, he ends any issue. Plus, you can hit folks with an exiling discard that trumps Liliana Vess's. Now, what drops him from hitting #1 is that he has the worst multiplayer-friendly ultimate of the lot. It's worse that Ajani Vengeant's. Trust me. As some who has played Shahrazad over the years, I know it's one of the least friendly cards one could ever play. Chaos Orb? That's fun! Shahrazad? Not fun! Karn Liberated has to keep clear of the ultimate—or else. But Karn is worth it just for the first two abilities.
Venser plays very nicely with the things we already are playing. Since our decks are loaded with guys such as Mulldrifter, Acidic Slime, and Karmic Guide, the Sojourner's Flicker ability already works quite well. And his tricks don't stop there! He can Flicker permanents, so you can Flicker out that Khalni Garden, Bojuka Bog, or Jwar Isle Refuge, along with your Mycosynth Wellspring or Flight of Fancy. Beyond enters-the-battlefield abuse, you can use it to reload the counters on a Planeswalker, untap an attacker post-combat to use as a blocker, reload the +1/+1 counters on a Spike Weaver or Triskelion, trigger Aura Shards or Mentor of the Meek, pull unfortunate Auras off your stuff, and so forth. And all of that synergy is packed in just his first ability.
Stalemates are very common at the casual game, and he can break through them with his second ability. If the ultimate hits, every spell played turns into the best removal spell ever printed. Venser has a lot to recommend him!
Not every deck is playing control and wants to sit around waiting. Numerous decks are aggressively, playing creatures early and looking to swing. One of the singular enablers for these decks is the first Elspeth.
The pair of options for +1 abilities, to either throw someone up while pumping it or to spit out a token, is a serious threat. And if you let her go too long, well, let's just say that ultimate leads to aggro decks attacking suicidally without fear of death. Elspeth is a perfect ally for decks that want to push things early and often into the red zone.
Imagine that the Khans of Tarkir set had an uncommon enchantment variant of Fires of Yavimaya that read like this:
Fires of Tarkir
Uncommon
Enchantment
Creatures you control get +1/+1 and have haste.
That's a card so potent it could go the distance in Standard. To combine what’s normally a 3-mana mechanic (Gaea's Anthem, Glorious Anthem) with haste for just 1 more mana would open up the possibility of a new era of Fires decks, especially if we had the mana Elves to play it early. Well, Sarkhan Vol is essentially that enchantment turn after turn while giving himself a counter. You never need to use that -2 Act of Treason or the -6 Dragon churning. That first ability alone is enough to change the game—to turn a stalemate into a win. You hit with creature after creature early, especially after a Wrath of God. And on top of that, when you don't need the Fires ability, you have him for the other two. That massive level of flexibility on top of a powerful card sets him up for kitchen-table dominance.
And #1 at the kitchen table, and in your hearts, is . . .
Most of the original set of Planeswalkers that debuted in Lorwyn have been antiquated by later iterations of the card type. Certainly Chandra Nalaar and Ajani Goldmane are on the weaker side. Jace Beleren is adequate at best in most formats, and Garruk Wildspeaker is more of a strong utility card than a potent Planeswalker. But Liliana Vess is different. For multiplayer, very few ’Walkers have reached the heights of Liliana. In duels, she was never more than feasible because at 5 mana, forcing discards is a bit weak.
But in multiplayer, she is a reverse Staff of Nin, forcing card advantage every turn by forcing a discard while she swells. Or you can just tutor with her to put the most important card for the situation on top of your library. And heaven help the table when she goes off with her Rise of the Dark Realms. The result is a card that has a lot of spice and zest for most tables, and she procures card advantage, tutors, and/or mass game-winning fun. She dominates a table.
Some of the last choices pulled from the list were Liliana of the Veil, Garruk Wildspeaker, and the good Chandra (Chandra, Pyromaster).
Wrap-Up
So, what did you think? Would you have dear Lily on top? Would it be this version? What did you like? What would be your Top 10? Let us know!
See you next week,
Abe Sargent
P.S. Where would I rank Dack Fayden before playing him? For multiplayer, I’d rank him quite highly. His first ability is quite good since you aren’t losing a card with it as you do with other spells. In multiplayer, a ton of people run artifacts, from Darksteel Ingot to Mind's Eye, so he could prove quite interesting. And his ultimate emblem has a lot of potential. But even if you just sit on him for the first ability, I think he’s better than a lot of other pure card-draw-oriented, but more expensive, ’Walkers, such as Jace, Memory Adept.
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