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The Award for the Most Surprisingly Balanced Planeswalker goes to...
I kind of hate ever using the word "interesting" but if ever there were an interesting card to talk about, it would be The Wandering Emperor. The big lever to pull on this card is its Flash; meaning there are two broad areas of discussion:
- Why would you ever not cast it at instant speed?
- What are the implications of casting it on your opponent's turn?
The first is pretty easy to answer: You cast The Wandering Emperor on your own turn if that's how you maximize your likelihood of resolving it. So, if your Blue opponent has their mana all tapped and your window is on your own turn? You cast it. If your opponent has some effect (probably a Teferi in a format where you can play one) that would prevent you from being able to play it on theirs? Kinda priced into the main phase, right?
But by default, you will want to play The Wandering Emperor on your opponent's turn, often during combat.
[+1]: I think the best time to play The Wandering Emperor is kind of non-intuitive if you plan to use its [+1] ability during the opponent's combat. You'll presumably be doing this if you already have a creature to block with, but you want to punch up or increase the likelihood your creature lives. But essential to that is the idea that your creature will block at all. Ergo, you'll want to generally declare blocks first, make sure that registers (especially against non-trampling attackers) and then play / activate the [+1] on The Wandering Emperor. Alternately, you might want to block with a creature if and only if you think it will live through or win the combat. In that case you might cast The Wandering Emperor prior to blocks AND [attempt to] use the [+1]. If something goes afoul on either of those points (the opponent has a permission spell for your Planeswalker or some kind of Stifle effect for the proposed [+1]) you can elect not to expose your precious creature.
[-1]: If you plan to block with the 2/2 Samurai, you'll need to cast The Wandering Emperor at some point prior to declare blockers. Alternately, if you just want to attack with it, you can wait until the traditional time slot of the opponent's End Step to start your turn with the proposed attacker on the battlefield. The [-1] ability's 2/2 Samurai doesn't win a lot of fights, but it can gobble up a 1/1 or trade with quite a few playable creatures. There is an argument for casting this flexible Planeswalker prior to declare attacks to disincentivize any attack at all.
[-2]: The Wandering Emperor doesn't have a proper ultimate, but on the other hand, it can use its most powerful loyalty ability the turn it enters play. This one can play point removal (again, commonly during combat, where you can save some life in addition to gaining life)... But if you don't mind taking a hit, you can end step it and remove a key creature before your opponent's next turn. Just a note on applicability: This is a pretty nice one. If you had The Wandering Emperor on the battlefield already, the opponent might not swing. The instant speed options around its first turn on the battlefield allow you to potentially punish the opponent in a spot where they might not have exposed their best creature. Finally, being able to nab an attacker that has some kind of "protection from instants" ability is a nice little wrinkle.
Interesting, right?
The Award for Planeswalker in Need of More Analysis goes to...
This card is serviceable, but I don't really smell fireworks. Just some notes...
[+1]: This is a pretty nice ability. I predict it will be most useful in a Bant deck that can force the opponent to commit a second creature, setting up some kind of Wrath of God. Then, when they play a replacement, they'll have to get past Tamiyo's [+1] again before getting any damage in.
[-X]: Just important to note that if you pay full price for Tamiyo (five) you get five loyalty to work with, but a one-mana discount is paired with a two-mana penalty in base loyalty. Which is not to say you should never cast this card at a discount... Just that if you're doing it, you should have something spicy to reanimate... That costs less than 3
[-7]: This is one of the least "game over" ultimate abilities I've ever seen. You lose everything if you lose Tamiyo's Notebook... It's not an emblem, it's just any old artifact. Tamiyo will get increasingly worse the more popular Boseiju, Who Endures is in the format.
The Award for Most Underrated Planeswalker in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty goes to...
Tezzeret is kind of the opposite of Tamiyo. He has 3 powerful loyalty abilities, but his static ability is a huge door to walk through to gain value.
One way to really get a lot of advantage out of this card is to play with multiple artifacts that have activation costs of two. Imagine a really bizarro world where you might play Millstone. If you have two Millstones in play on turn four, prior to resolving Tezzeret; you have a really compelling story to tell.
You can activate the first on your turn... For free! But that's not all! If you get to your opponent's turn, you can activate the second, also for free! In that kind of odd case, you can essentially pay for Tezzeret in activation fee savings. You're creative. You can probably come up with something more game-breaking than double Millstone.
Combining multiple abilities in an artifact-rich environment can be pretty spectacular.
Imagine you opened on a Basilisk Collar, then played an Ichor Wellspring on two. Once you had Tezzeret in play two turns later, you could do something like this:
[-2]: Turn Ichor Wellspring into a 4/4 creature.
Then use the two mana discount ability to affix Basilisk Collar onto your new creature! Get in there for four damage of lifelink. Who needs to block?
The Award for Most Underrated Card in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Overall goes to...
No one is writing home for a 4/4 creature for five mana. On the other hand, the Channel ability - two mana of any color to search your library for a Plains - is sweet. It can't easily be countered; and weirdly, it can fix your colors. I can totally see playing some of these in a control deck to help smooth early, then provide a body / way to win later. The 2 life is an incredibly annoying cherry on top of an already playable ability for some opponents.
The Rare Land Cycle
Literally every one of the rare lands is an automatic one-of for essentially whatever deck plays that color. You need a pretty good reason to not include at least one copy of Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance in your Mono-Red build. It enters the battlefield untapped, and comes with a very desirable Channel ability. I do think there is some argument for these lands to not be Snow-Covered, but probably not enough to not include at least one copy.
The real question is... When would you play more than one?
Like every land in this cycle, Otawara is an easy include for Blue decks; especially Control decks. Unlike most, I think there is a very compelling reason to play as many as all four... At least in your seventy-five.
The first Otawara is free. Count it as an Island more-or-less. I think the second copy can also fill a land slot, but the third and fourth either have to count against your spells, or use up sideboard space.
But why might you invest in these extra slots? One big reason:
Jin-Gitaxias costs a prohibitive seven mana... But big numbers in the top-right have never really deterred Jin-Gitaxiases of times past from seeing play. That Phyrexian Praetor's second ability makes getting rid of it annoying. Not only does it counter the first attempt to interact with the 7-drop... You have to have a second follow up spell that can presumably do so as well. This isn't just card advantageous for the opponent, it further narrows your ability to successfully defend.
Otawara gets around all this, even if you can't get the discount. The Channel just works... Well, usually. You are discarding a card, though; so maybe wait until you can Counter Jin-Gitaxias coming back down, or force the opponent to discard it.
Otawra kind of relies on the popularity of another card to justify multiple copies; but Sokenzan screams to play extra copies in the abstract.
Again, count the first 1-2 as Mountains. A Red beatdown deck that might otherwise play only 22 lands will go to 24 to justify running the extras. The ability is just too good.
Not that two 1/1 tokens for four mana is such a good rate in the abstract. Hordeling Outburst (three tokens for three mana) was considered one of the best Standard cards of its era, and Sokenzan costs one more for one fewer Goblin... Err... Spirit. The difference is that you're getting this ability off of a land. The option to Channel it at instant speed - both un-counter-able and potentially during combat - make for a delicious overlap of low risk and high upside.
Really nice to have this kind of interaction essentially free (your Naturalize now takes up a land slot)... But probably not enough to play more than one copy main deck. If you are really in the market for this kind of effect, I think I'd explore some dedicated spells before maxing out of Boseijus.
Despite the fact that Mono-White, with its Thalias and Adelines and Reidanes, is actually one of the strategies most likely to benefit from a costing discount... I think I'd only play one copy in that deck. Mono-White can't easily get rid of a glut on nonbasic lands, and the defensive-minded ability is not very attractive for a proactive strategy.
Control decks are another matter. I think the second is a pretty fair inclusion before you start worrying about deck space. Again, cash in some Plains slots. I don't see Eiganjo as a very efficient sideboard card, though.
This card is like the reverse Sunblade Samurai... A very nice land that you can convert into some variety of creature, rather than a mediocre creature that can sometimes be a land. It is also the most direct one-for-one exchange card in the cycle. If you play creatures and Planeswalkers, this card can slide into a very familiar role.
That said, I'm not sure what deck actually wants to potentially compromise its mana development doing this four times over. Even a really permanents-dense deck might get into more trouble than it's worth investing in two or more copies of Takenuma.
Reincarnated Dragons
The Dragons cycle is a Kamigawa tradition. As we talked about last week, the first time around, creatures like Keiga, the Tide Star and Yosei, the Morning Star were among the most important and widely relied upon attackers and blockers for a variety of legendary decks. This time we see a shocking reversal!
The Green Dragon seems like, far and away, the best of the bunch! Who wants to tussle with this? It's "only" a 4/4 flyer for five mana, but deathtouch makes Kura impossible to try to overpower, and its death trigger options are both horrible for the opponent.
If you get three lands... This says THREE LANDS; not three basic lands. One of them can just be Takenuma, Abandoned Mire and now the opponent has to deal with Kura all over again (plus you get two more cards, which can potentially be card advantage).
Who wants to trade in the mere 4/4 flying deathtouch for the X/X Green Spirit token? With an implied floor of 5/5, that's some rate right there.
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We talked about Atsushi a little bit already. It seems to me the Red and Blue Dragons are mostly distinguished by their casting costs... The lowest and highest of the cycle. Neither have the oomph of a Kura, but both will have their fans.
First ability please! This card seems awesome; and its death trigger is a great way to keep the pressure on, even when biting the dust.
Just one small note: If you lose Ao on the opponent's turn and select The Wandering Emperor as your four-mana permanent... You can use its abilities that turn. Awesome, huh?
Ao might be the sleeper card of the cycle. In a go-wide tokens strategy, the second death trigger ability can prove surprisingly spectacular.
LOVE
MIKE
