Readers!

The year where I talk about Instants and Sorceries more is going... OK. I'm not giving up on it by any means, but I would be remiss if I didn't expand the (vague) scope of a thing I said I would do without being sure if anyone would remember I said I'd do it. You see, while I was over-relying on Enchantments because they're permanents and do something often, I was not just neglecting Instants and Sorceries, I was also neglecting a type of Permanent - the mighty Planeswalker.

Planeswalkers are like if you could attack an Enchantment with a creature. That sounds a little trite, but that means two things at once. First, it means that you get repeated effects turn after turn because the Planeswalker stays on the battlefield, like an Enchantment. A way a Planeswalker is NOT like an Enchantment is that you can attack it with creatures thus ensuring anyone who can attack your planeswalker will. People who roll dice to decide who to attack will attack your planeswalker. Players who never attack will attack your Planeswalker. People swing with Deathrite Shamans and Llanowar Elves to remove a single loyalty from a Planeswalker. Players will go 40 turns without anyone attack anyone, then you lay a 'walker and oooooo baby the hurt is coming when the other 3 players all attack your Planeswalker. It... well, it sucks, kinda.

I don't always play Planeswalkers in all of my decks because I just don't tend to have them lying around. They sell well at the LGS and I keep the case stocked which means I rarely have loose 'walkers lying around to jam in my own piles. When I do play them, I'm always shocked at how quickly they're taken down. Watching the table team up to reach a common goal is good, but when that common goal is always to murder your 'walkers no matter what the others players' boards are starting to look like, it can get draining. Put simply, this isn't 2008 and you can't just run a naked Planeswalker out there, -2 it and expect to be left with anything but a smoldering crater where Liliana used to be by the time it's your turn again. Since this is my column, I'm going to use Planeswalkers as a smokescreen to talk about Enchantments some more. Also, I'm not going to talk about individual Planeswalkers because they don't matter much and I really only want to talk about the concept of Planeswalkers - namely, how to keep them around. Without further ado, here are cards you should be playing alongside your 'walkers because if I can read way too much into a spoiled card from New Capenna, Planeswalkers might be a thing this year.

Is this a reach? You bet! But I have a very brief window between products to write evergreen articles and I'll take any excuse I can. Without further ado, let's kick off April of our "write about Instants and Sorceries" year to use Planeswalkers as an excuse to talk about Enchantments. I mentioned that twice, and if you're still here, you'll likely like this next part. It's fun to make them not be able to kill your 'walkers. Here's how I think a 75% builder should do it.

Steal Their Creatures

If they're attacking your planeswalker with Creatures, try having their creatures. That lets you block and kill a Creature of theirs with a Creature of theirs, which is deeply satisfying and if it wasn't, why is that all of Green's removal? This isn't going to be a fully fleshed-out paragraph, but let's not pretend I could just not address the fact that the single best way to keep their creatures from attacking your Planeswalkers is to steal their creatures. It works the best.

Kill Their Creatures

Specifically, the ones that threaten your Planeswalkers. Point removal is great for this, wraths do the job but I feel they make the game go too long. In my walker-heavy decks I tend to run more point removal than normal, and when I do, I prefer spells like Curtains' Call to solve more than one problem at once. Aetherspouts and Aetherize are two particularly nasty cards for really punishing people for trying to hurt your babies, but Settle the Wreckage, Sudden Spoiling, and Teferi's Protection all work, too. You're going to get attack more than normal, and having a plan for when that happens, and playing cards that punish people for getting overly aggro both do a lot of work here. But we're still operating under the assumption that they'll attack more. But like, what if they didn't?

Nullify the Attack

They can attack all they want if they're not doing damage. Lately, I have been adding a lot of Snow basics to my deck for 2 cards - one is Draugr Necromancer, to the surprise of no one, but the other is Sunstone. If you have Red, you can add Glacial Crevasses as well. Constant Mists seems costly, but you likely don't need to do it more than 2 or 3 times until your walkers get big enough to ult unless the whole table decides they want to take your 'walkers down. Decks that can loop smaller creatures can Fog Frog ad infinitum, much more easily than decks that aren't built around Ramunap Excavator can keep bringing back lands to sac to fog, so don't forget creature fog packages, either. We have Haze Frog and Stonehorn Dignitary for Blink decks, too.

Make Them not Attack You

You can certainly goad their creatures which will keep your walkers safe - that solves both the problem of too many opposing creatures and too many opponents in a satisfying way. However, if we can't make them attack everyone (we should do this a lot) we can make them not attack us at all. Let's look at a few of my favorite options.

Taxes

If they need to pay mana to declare an attacker, it's best if they can't do that. You can use Ghostly Prison you can use Propaganda you can use Norn's Annex to make it too expensive for them to attack you. Did you know War Tax prevented creatures from attacking at all, not just attacking you? That makes it quite a bit worse than the classic options, but if you have a few Texas Rangers running around, maybe consider War Tax as it protects your investment in a way Propaganda can't match. Let's also not forget the Enchantophile's favorite - Sphere of Safety. Sphere of Safety was printed recently enough that it references Planeswalkers specifically. You lose a few of your tax effects, but you have enough usually.

Bottlenecks

Bottleneck cards can't stop them from attacking at all, but it can slow the deluge to a manageable trickle, which is very useful. Crawlspace is a go-to because it can go in any color deck, but there are a few more that even I don't play enough but need to start. Dueling Grounds saw some Legacy play but that was long enough ago (RIP, Maverick) that the price has come back down a bit and they're gettable under $10. That's great news for everyone who can handle one creature a turn but not a whole stream of them. The upside here is that Dueling Grounds keeps you alive longer, too.

Mutually Assured Destruction

If all other attempts to convince them not to attack your walkers fail, you can make attacking your way seem very inhospitable. Lightmine Field, Powerstone Minefield - even Caltrops can make them think twice about sending a few creatures to pick on your vulnerable and juicy targets. One surprise for this section was seeing Dread, the No Mercy Elemental from Lorwyn, doesn't kill their creature if it deals damage to a Planeswalker you control despite being printed in Lorwyn, the first set with Planeswalkers. In fact, only Cunning Rhetoric, a card quickly becoming my favorite of the who Strixhaven card dump, references Planeswalkers and punishes them for swinging at them. You don't need 'Walkers to love Cunning Rhetoric but you'll really really love it here.

Goad

Goading their creatures means that they'll have to attack elsewhere, keeping your 'walkers safe. Goad cards are printed recently enough that they reference "you or a planeswalker you control" the way older cards might not. In fact, the Kaima deck I built recently is the perfect place to try some of these concepts out. More 'walkers and a few deterrents to keep them around.

Kaima Chameleon, Now With More Walkers | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Kaima, the Fractured Calm

• Creatures (12)
• 1 Argothian Enchantress
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Brash Taunter
• 1 Chishiro, the Shattered Blade
• 1 Eidolon of Blossoms
• 1 Herald of the Pantheon
• 1 Komainu Battle Armor
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1 Sanctum Weaver
• 1 Setessan Champion
• 1 Skyshroud Ranger
• 1 Vengeful Ancestor

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 1 Nissa, Vital Force
• 1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Wrenn and Seven
• 1 Wrenn and Six

• Instants (7)
• 1 Constant Mists
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Silkguard
• 1 Tamiyo's Safekeeping
• 1 Tibalt's Trickery
• 1 Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary
• 1 Chandra's Ignition
• 1 Jeska's Will
• 1 Pir's Whim
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise

• Enchantments (26)
• 1 Alpha Authority
• 1 Aspect of Mongoose
• 1 Bear Umbra
• 1 Bequeathal
• 1 Crown of Flames
• 1 Curse of Opulence
• 1 Dragon Breath
• 1 Dragon Mantle
• 1 Enchantress's Presence
• 1 Errantry
• 1 Fertile Ground
• 1 Fiery Mantle
• 1 Frog Tongue
• 1 Glacial Crevasses
• 1 Keen Sense
• 1 Kenrith's Transformation
• 1 Latulla's Orders
• 1 Paroxysm
• 1 Rancor
• 1 Shiny Impetus
• 1 Sluggishness
• 1 Song of the Dryads
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Undying Rage
• 1 Unquenchable Fury
• 1 Vow of Lightning

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Crawlspace
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Shadowspear
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (37)
• 13 Snow-Covered Forest
• 10 Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Deserted Temple
• 1 Fire-Lit Thicket
• 1 Glacial Chasm
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sheltered Thicket
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 War Room
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 1 Witch's Clinic
• 1 Wooded Foothills

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This actually didn't take that many changes. The 5 'Walkers I added were ones that synergize with the new land package or were generically good - you know how hard it is to find a Gruul Planeswalker that doesn't scale with the number of creatures you control? Still, the deck already had a few of the cards we like such as Glacial Chasm and Crawlspace. Goad does a decent chance of protecting us already, but if you want Planeswalkers to live long enough for you to Ultimate them, maybe a bit more care needs to go into it.

This deck only has 5 Planeswalkers, but most of the ways I have to protect them from getting hit protect me also. You should take very little damage here, but you want to make sure to goad a lot to keep them busy hitting each other because we can bring one land per turn cycle back with Crucible but if all 3 players attack every turn, you're in trouble.

I still think there is a possibility that we will get a Commander in... Brokers? Spara? New Bant, the color combo that gave us Brokers Ascendancy that synergizes with Planeswalkers. If that happens, I'll likely update this concept more. With Bant cards, we have access to a lot of strategies that synergize well. Heck, Venser plus Stonehorn Dignitary is a combo already and works in a lot of Planeswalker blink decks. If they don't give us a Bant Superfriends Commander in New Capenna, I may just make the deck anyway. It's not Instants and Sorceries or anything, but Planeswalkers are still a card type I have neglected a bit and I should rectify that to be a more complete deck-builder.

That does it for me, readers. Thanks for joining me today and make sure to keep sharing this on social media and follow me on Twitter @jasonealt. Until next time!