The results are in, and we have a planeswalker roster for M12. This week, I’m going to spend a little time on each of them, and speculate a bit on what decks they will be good in, if at all. I’m pretty excited by the new Garruk, and I’ve got a couple of ideas on how to best use him.

First, let’s take a look at Gideon Jura, a card that has seen tons of play lately. One of my personal favorites, it can do things that no other planeswalker can do. Against creature decks, it buys you valuable time to find an answer, and when the coast is clear, it starts attacking for rather large chunks of life. While it has seen some action in Boros sideboards, to go “big” as it were, Gideon has traditionally worked best in a U/W control shell. It’s at its core a tempo card. What I mean by that is that if your opponent is ahead of you on tempo, Gideon steals away the advantage as he is forced to spend time to deal with it. If you’re ahead on tempo, Gideon makes it almost impossible for your opponent to catch up.

Pascal Maynard decided that Caw-Blade wasn’t dead and recently won a $2.5K in Montreal with the following list:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

3 Emeria Angel

4 Squadron Hawk

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

2 Gideon Jura

2 Jace Beleren

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

1 Deprive

2 Dismember

2 Into the Roil

3 Spell Pierce

4 Mana Leak

1 Gitaxian Probe

4 Preordain

2 Gravitational Shift

2 Journey to Nowhere

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

[/Spells]

[Lands]

3 Plains

4 Island

1 Scalding Tarn

2 Arid Mesa

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Seachrome Coast

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Spellskite

1 Dismember

1 Divine Offering

2 Celestial Purge

2 Mental Misstep

4 Flashfreeze

3 Day of Judgment

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

I realize that some of the numbers seem random, but according to him, this deck was thrown together the night before the tournament, so some tuning might be necessary. Gideon works well in this deck, and previously in Caw-Blade (until it was supplanted by more efficient cards) because it allows you to press a tempo advantage. Going to race my flyers? Sorry, brah, I got a Gideon, GG. Gravitational Shift might seem strange, but it serves a similar function to Gideon’s, as it helps you press your advantage while slowing your opponent down.

Moving on to Jace, Memory Adept, I think it’s going to be a little while before he sees widespread adoption in the Blue decks. If you’re strictly using him to draw cards, Jace Beleren is a better option for as long as he’s available. This means that your deck has to be able to make use of the mill ability. You can try a U/G Vengevine deck, or go all out with a B/U/G graveyard shenanigans deck. Developing such a deck is a little outside the intended scope of this article, but it’s definitely worth investigating.

For Team Edward’s part, we have the most veteran of our M12 planeswalkers, Sorin Markov. Unfortunately for the Vampire lord, I think he’s going to be sitting in many a trade binder for a while. I’ve played Sorin before in a Grixis control deck that won me a Mox and a small fortune in MTGO. However, this was before the existence of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and the M11 Titans. The Mindslaver effect is my favorite thing ever to do in Magic, but we have better things to with 6 mana these days. While it’s certainly possible that he might see some fringe use in the future, I’d wager the vast majority of the time Mr. Markov gets sleeved is for a forty-card deck.

Trailblazing ahead to Red, we have Chandra’s third incarnation, Chandra, the Firebrand. The obvious strengths are that the new Chandra is cheap and splashable. Whether it’s good in a format is contingent on one of two things being true:

• There are an abundance of quality 1-toughness creatures in the format that need killing.
• There are some really sweet instants or sorceries worth copying.

So far, neither one of these conditions have been met, judging from the results of Chinese Nationals. I don’t see this changing with M12, either, so Chandra, the Firebrand will have to wait a little while for her moment to shine.

Last, but certainly not least, we *finally* have a new Garruk. Let’s look at his abilities:

+1: Put a 3/3 green Beast creature token onto the battlefield.

So this is like Elspeth’s ability (Knight-Errant, obviously), but better?

−3: Draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.

I’m sure the fine readers of GatheringMagic don’t need me to tell them that drawing cards is a good thing. While somewhat conditional, and a timely removal spell can sometimes ruin your day, in my mind this is what I want to be doing with the Primal Hunter as often as possible.

−6: Put a 6/6 green Wurm creature token onto the battlefield for each land you control.

I doubt that most games will get to a point where you’ll use this ability, but it’s certainly a nice option to have. The threat of activating it will often be enough to get your opponent to play differently, and that is something you can take advantage of. The only real drawback of the new Green planeswalker is the in the casting cost, requiring you to have a pretty heavy Green commitment, or have some good mana-fixing at the very least. Between Lotus Cobra, Rampant Growth, and the plethora of dual lands available, I don’t see that being much of a problem, but it is definitely something you should be aware of.

This is a deck I’ve been working on where Garruk, Primal Hunter really gets to shine:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Sphinx of Uthuun

2 Consecrated Sphinx

2 Oracle of Mul Daya

3 Frost Titan

4 Lotus Cobra

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

4 Garruk, Primal Hunter

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

1 Beast Within

1 Go for the Throat

4 Mana Leak

3 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Explore

4 Ponder

[/Spells]

[Lands]

2 Swamp

4 Forest

4 Island

2 Halimar Depths

3 Tectonic Edge

4 Creeping Tar Pit

4 Misty Rainforest

4 Verdant Catacombs

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

3 Obstinate Baloth

2 Go for the Throat

4 Flashfreeze

1 Life's Finale

2 Black Sun's Zenith

3 Memoricide

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

I started with Pat Cox’s SCG Invitational–winning R/U/G list, and started replacing Red cards with Black ones. I feel that Black is better positioned for the metagame, and cards like Go for the Throat and Memoricide are particularly effective in combating Splinter Twin and Valakut, respectively. Frost Titan is probably good again, as keeping a Valakut player off Green or a Splinter Twin player off Red is valuable. Frost Titan is also the Titan that is most likely going to survive long enough for you to draw six off your Garruk. The list could definitely use some tuning, as I have yet to really play many games with it, but you get the general idea.

Another deck that Garruk, Primal Hunter fits perfectly into is a mono-creature Eldrazi Monument style of deck. I’ve rarely been impressed with those styles of decks, but they can sometimes come out of nowhere and win tournaments. I’ll leave it to more daring and capable brewers to come up with a seventy-five I wouldn’t be embarrassed to play or put into print.

That about does it for my M12 planeswalker analysis. I hope this helps you out if you’re figuring out what to play in the new Standard format. As always, feel free to comment in the forums if you have any questions, suggestions, requests, death threats, or marriage proposals.

Until next time,

Nassim Ketita