Locations
Just like that, spoiler season is upon us again! We’ve just barely had a chance to peek at a Caw-Blade-less Standard format when suddenly our imaginations are sent reeling with another entirely new set of possibilities. This new core set wasn’t looking to be terribly exciting in the early build-up, with the tagline of “Gather Your Allies” silently suffixed with
Garruk, Primal Hunter
What better way to start that with the juiciest of all? 5-mana planeswalkers have been derided as unplayable before, largely due to their initially unimpressive offerings of Liliana Vess and Chandra Nalaar. That these girls offered only marginal effects for their 5-mana cost was what doomed them—not that cost itself. The “5-mana rule” has actually already become outdated, with Gideon Jura, Venser, and Elspeth Tirel all seeing play of varying amounts in Standard control decks, while Sarkhan Vol and Nissa Revane have hardly been overwhelmingly powerful at the 4 spot. I think that M12 will be the coming-out of the 5-mana planeswalker as a real flagship, with 5 mana apparently the new Standard planeswalker cost.
While some people are disappointed with the new Garruk, I have trouble understanding why. The only difficulty in seeing just how strong he is that I can imagine is that it’s somehow too obvious. Read the first ability:
+1: Put a 3/3 green Beast creature token onto the battlefield.
The plus loyalty ability is generally the most important in determining a planeswalker’s viability. If it is just going to use itself up, there are often sorceries or enchantments that can do the same job, but a planeswalker that can do something useful while making itself harder to kill and building toward a game-winning ultimate—well, there you have a potential powerhouse.
The reason Elspeth, Knight-Errant was so good was that her two plus abilities were always useful. If you ever played with her, try and bring that experience to mind. Your opponent had to commit considerable resources to destroying her, or she would merrily tick up her loyalty while helping you out—with no extra tax on your resources! Her 1/1 tokens were immensely useful for protecting you and her and for going on the offensive once you’d turned the tide. This left you free to draw cards, play removal, activate your man lands and whatever other fancy stuff you were doing while she was flooding the board, protecting you, and getting the job done.
Now, imagine if you can that those tokens are 3/3 Beasts instead. A 3/3 is way better than a 1/1! It’s pretty obvious, right? It kills the opponent three times faster. It can trade for opposing X/3’s at a rate of one to one rather than three to one. It can hold off opposing 2/2’s without even having to fight. It doesn’t die to Pyroclasm. Old Garruk had to lose loyalty to make a beast, and he was still very playable! This one pops out a critter while moving his loyalty up to 4, making him harder to kill in two ways and building toward that sweet ultimate.
To get a sense of Garruk with his first ability and his ultimate, imagine an artifact:
Robo-Garruk Deluxe
Artifact
When Robo-Garruk Deluxe enters the battlefield, put a 3/3 Beast token onto the battlefield.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a 3/3 Beast token onto the battlefield and put a charge counter on Robo-Garruk Deluxe.
Remove three charge counters from Robo-Garruk Deluxe and sacrifice it: Put a 6/6 Worm token onto the battlefield for each land you control.
It’s not a perfect representation by any means, but there’s no way this contraption would cost just 5 mana. As my friend Trent on Twitter said, designing planeswalker’s ultimate is basically looking for an interesting way to write “You win the game,” and Garruk’s is little different in this respect—while your opponent might have a Day of Judgment or similar to spoil your party, holding off killing your growing horde of beasts with it will have put him in a tight spot indeed.
Middle abilities are often the hardest to evaluate—to me, they feel like the consolation prize when you have no real prospect of getting the ultimate off before your opponent takes down your planeswalker. Garruk has a doozy of a middle ability, letting you immediately trade him in for a Soul’s Majesty worth of cards. Even better, however, is that this ability doesn’t target, so unless you just have one lonesome creature—and in that case, why not make it a playmate instead?—the opponent can’t blow you out with removal in response. On average, I expect this ability will draw you three cards—sometimes you’ll get two off a Lotus Cobra, sometimes you might get six off a Titan for the sick rub-ins, but three on average sounds about right. Harmonize is the perfect comparison here and was a perfectly playable card—the only downside is that you are drawing Green cards, which on the whole are rather less exciting than cards of the other colors, unfortunately.
Verdict: I’ll go out on an Erwin-style limb here to say I think Garruk will be the strongest new card in the set and will be a major player for the length of his stay in Standard.
Chandra, the Firebrand
I make no secret in these columns of my Red affiliation, so one might expect that the new Chandra would be my pick of the bunch—but she’s been edged out by Garruk, as you can see above. She is certainly of great interest, but where Garruk makes no secret of his power, Chandra is more reliant on the cards you surround her with. Her first ability, while a strict upgrade on her 5-mana incarnation, can only protect her from the most feeble of opposition. Her final ability is certainly an ultimate, though not quite as definitive as some others—against a creatureless opponent, it is basically Lava Axe. Unlike new Garruk, or Big Jace, or Ajani Vengeant, we can’t just start ticking her up on an empty board and demand of our opponent, “Deal with this, or it’s game over.”
So that leaves us with two other curious characteristics. First, we have Chandra’s intriguing middle ability—like Twincast that can only copy your own spells, but for no extra mana investment. This ability has enormous potential, as Pyromancer Ascension decks have demonstrated for us over the last year and a half. Even just copying things like Foresee and Lightning Bolt is enough to build an entire strategy around. Chandra doesn’t force you to jump through a bunch of hoops to get your copy; just get her into play and she’s ready to go. She doesn’t copy every spell, however, so you’ll want to make the ones you copy count. How about copying Slagstorm to take down opposing Titans? Copy Goblin Grenade for a sweet 10 to the opponent’s face? Copy Volt Charge, and as well as 6’ing your opponent or taking down two creatures, put 2 counters back on Chandra? My favorite unrealistic prospect is to play Koth, then follow up with Chandra, use Koth’s ability to make 5 mana and cast Geosurge, copy it, and play Emrakul on turn five! This middle ability seems pretty tasty, but just like Venser’s sweet first ability, you are relying on drawing multiple good cards at once, and not having them Duressed away.
The other curious characteristic of Chandra is her mana cost. While she is certainly a Red card, she need not be exclusive to mono-Red. With only the one 
in her casting cost, she is easy to slot into multicolored decks, where she will cheerfully zap opposing weenies and copy whatever instants or sorceries take your fancy. Some that immediately spring to mind are Cultivate in a Red/Green deck, Tezzeret’s Gambit in Red/Blue (or even mono-Red), Foresee, Time Warp, Diabolic Tutor, Mind Rot, or Timely Reinforcements. Super Friends could even make a return, with Chandra-powered Proliferate spells setting off planeswalker ultimates left, right, and center!
Verdict: Chandra, the Firebrand certainly has potential, but she is not just going to serve victory up on a platter—you have to work to make her good.
Jace, Memory Adept
On the one hand, this is undoubtedly the next Jace. On the other hand, this is nothing like The Next Jace. This guy is nowhere near the level of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, will see nowhere near as much play, and will command nowhere near as high a price.
With that out of the way, let’s consider him on his merits. His first ability gains him loyalty and draws you a card, which is excellent, but not as dramatic as a Venser, the Sojourner or Consecrated Sphinx. It also mills either you or your opponent for one, which is pretty irrelevant outside of a milling deck or a graveyard-abusing deck—since milling decks are effectively dead with the Eldrazi titans in the format, and no one is abusing the graveyard overly much, this little bonus is going to have to wait for Innistrad to make an impact. Likewise the second ability, which—interestingly—costs no loyalty, and mills either you or your opponent for ten. The final ability is an excellent finisher for a milling deck, and even has some applications in letting you draw cards in Commander.
So, milling or graveyard-abusing, two nonexistent deck types in current Standard? Not looking good for the new Jace—yet. Innistrad is heavily rumored to be a graveyard-based set, and if you can +1 him, draw a card, and then mill a Flashback card or something into your graveyard, that is virtually drawing two! If Delve makes a return, milling ten of your own cards is like generating 10 mana. There are also a load of great milling tools joining Jace in M12, the most marked with his name to help you join the dots. If milling is also pushed in Innistrad, Jace’s abilities start to look decidedly more useful.
Verdict: Tuck them away for the time being, and then reevaluate him in light of Innistrad spoiler season.
So there you have my thoughts on our new planeswalker friends, in order of how good I think they’ll be in Standard. Do you agree? What else has got you excited about the new set? Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter (@rtassicker).
