Planeswalker Game

Nah, I'm good. I did a challenge just a few weeks ago I don't need another.

So it's been 24 hours and judging by the general nature of the responses I think it's safe to get the ball rolling:

Since the last challenge was effectively about making a planeswalker work at 1-3 mana, your next challenge is to go to the other end of the spectrum and make a planeswalker that costs 10 or more mana! Good luck!

That Which Was Forgotten
Legendary Planeswalker- Laviere
Emerge (You may cast this spell by sacrificing a creature and paying the emerge cost reduced by that creature’s converted mana cost.)
: Reveal the top three cards of your library. You may put a permanent card from among them into your hand. Put the rest into your graveyard.
: Choose a permanent type. Target opponent sacrifices a permanent of the chosen type.
: You get an emblem with “Whenever a creature you control attacks, the defending player sacrifices two permanents.”

kefke Good writeup, and I appreciate giving a breakdown into your design choices. They all fit the character in question while promising an effect powerful enough (the middle ability in particular) that I'm sure decks across various formats would all try and break in some form or fashion. My only slight point of contention in this is the idea that only Emrakul can win, since Ugin's Insight explicitly states "they came as three" and if theories like the "Eldrazi are the multiverse's cleanup crew" are true, it is likely the three original Eldrazi do have aligned interests, if not the same goal. That said, that's a minor complaint, the rest of the card comes together fairly well. If you could find a way to resolve that flavor disconnect (some mild statement about Ulamog or Kozilek being dead in another card could work, I guess), I think this would be set-ready.


sdfkjgh - I feel like it's worth pointing out the 2nd ability's 'drawback' only really has weight in a multiplayer game, and even then might just lead to really unfun games where everyone just tries to stop the Ko player from taking control of every other player and establishing a soft lock of sorts in the process. The affinity idea is promising but I think this tries so hard to be funny that it completely missed the implication that it could be a serious design had some of the values like the casting cost and how long the control effect lasts had been adjusted. Good meme, but could've been an even better card.

marshmellow - Representing the Gatewatch as an organization is a pretty interesting idea - granted, you can't search up Karn or Ugin with this, but neither are currently part of the Gatewatch so I don't particularly mind that flavor oddity. I like flavoring of the abilities as well - the idea of the organization 'protecting' one of its own, mafia-style, through the plus, and while the payoff is fairly predictable it fits that MCU final-charge type scene well. Gameplay-wise, it's obviously a rather expensive card that would mostly see play in Standard decks trying to cheat it out or Superfriends decks that can afford to ramp up to an ultra-tutor, but I think it justifies itself well in those roles and can fittingly be cheated out with Deploy the Gatewatch. All in all a solid design, I'd say this is set ready.

Tesagk - I'm a bit interested about how this interacts with hybrid mana. As noted by WoTC, "A permanent that costs count toward both their colors but aren't counted twice; meaning your devotion to red increases by 2, your devotion to green increases by 2, and your devotion to red and green also increases by 2 (but not 4 as one might have guessed)." Thankfully getting three creatures that cost 5 (or any number of smaller creatures), are able to match with the top of the line creatures, and not die so quickly is Wild Pair levels of jank. To be honest, if I had a complaint about this guy, it's that he just seems a bit on the plain side. He gives keyword soup, his middle ability is basically Ugin's middle with Karn-type selection, and a lot of the times his ability is just "Win the game" or "Win the game, but can't be countered by Angel's Grace". There's a lot of ways to make an ult that says "You win the game", and I just think this needs to be a smidge more exciting somehow - maybe make it have something to do with his drakes? Or something crazy with devotion? There's potential here but it needs more.

Flo00 - So, to be honest, my first thought with this Karn was that I wonder why affinity deck would want an Infect finisher. I guess his +2 is a slow advantage finisher but I can't help but wonder if the token should have flying because otherwise I think something like Urza or Ravager or even Metalwork Colossus provides faster or more resilient advantagae. The much more likely use (and bizarrely, costing ::10: works out for you perfectly here) IMHO is a Tron player trying to gather 4 Tron lands to slam down their equivalent of Jace the Mind Sculptor for the brainstorm and the self-protecting +2, ignoring the ultimate. I guess to me this card seems almost confused on what it wants to do - it says it supposedly wants to support Infect decks, but its cost lowering measure isn't much in-line with the the major Infect players who often use artifact-less creatures. Then it could support Affinity, but the payoffs are kind of slow compared to other Affinity options. The result is that its best use case is a deck that probably wasn't intended to use it and definitely doesn't use it as intended, which I think speaks to how poorly the idea of affinity and infect currently mash up on this card. If it had been Affinity for Infect or if you had told me this took place on a hypothetical set with Glistener Elf as an artifact, maybe I could root for this card a bit more, but as it currently is it feels like it's trying to tie together two different ideas that would be better off on two separate planeswalkers focused on each individual keyword.

augur - Even not knowing who Laviere is, I can already get an understanding of the card's Emerge flavor, which is a great start for selling me on its use. The abilities fit the color identity and the Eldrazi colorless mechanic design quite nicely and I could honestly see this going into a Standard set at some point. I do wish it did a little more with the graveyard with all the sacrificing going on, but PWs don't have to be perfect self-sustaining engines, so that's more a personal nitpick than anything else - frankly, I have a hard time saying much about this card because it just feels right in a lot of aspects. Feels set-ready to me.

gluestick248 - Karn, Eldrazi, and Ugin, the entire colorless gang's here, huh. I like the advantage generated by the manifest spam, working as both a card draw and a card advantage engine, and that third ability really got my attention once I noticed it, being a sort of ultra-manifest. I was a bit puzzled about the middle ability at first until I realized it played into the manifest theme and I think that really sold me on the design as this top-end toolbox finisher. Set-ready.

Daij_Djan - Designs like these leave me wondering just how people come up with these interesting ideas all the time. I expected a lot of mechanics to show up but Assist was one I had completely forgotten about, and the Planeswalker effects does feel appropriately costed for 2-3 team games. Obviously, the larger the teams are, the more broken this gets, but when Archenemy and Emperor usually expect a team of 3 players, I think it's fair to say that there's only so many situations you can account for. The emblem design is smart as well, allowing the opposing team a chance to win so long as the Fianne player is taken out, and the general nature of the first two abilities ensures that it will benefit a wide variety of decks. Set-ready.

All in all I think multiple entries were poised to win this, and 1st and 2nd place switched quite a few times for me. But there can only be one, so:

1st - Daij_Djan - I think what makes this design edge out on the others is that it took a very different approach compared to what I expected (I expected a lot of Affinity, Eldrazi, or Karn/Ugin designs) and did it in a design space where there is still a lot of unexplored ground. Assist/Surge-type designs may already exist but the scaling advantage and the idea of 'taunting' the opposing board into focusing you is a very novel concept.
2nd - augur - Planeswalkers don't get flavor text, but this practically tells a whole story while being a mechanically solid package all on its own. Great job.
3rd - Tie between gluestick248 , marshmellow , and kefke . Solid designs that just had very stiff competition.

Akdi, Fleeting Lightning
Legendary Planeswalker - Akdi
Whenever a red planeswalker leaves the battlefield, you may have Akdi, Fleeting Lightning deal 2 damage to target player or planeswalker.
:Until end of turn, Akdi, Fleeting Lightning becomes a 5/1 Elemental Shaman creature with haste and trample that’s still a planeswalker.
: ~ deals 3 damage to each creature.

It can't be an ETB (as the planeswalker would "die" with the ability still on the track), but an ability worded similar to Arcbound Worker for loyalty counters would indeed work (and be something I indeed had in mind as a possibility).

Daij_Djan: Technically X is looked at as 0 except on the stack, so would that work?

@Xenozfan2: I'll allow it!

Uh, sure, I'll throw something in. Why not.

So if this is allowed:

Elina, the Last Protector
Legendary Planeswalker - Elina
Whenever a source deals damage to Elina, the Last Protector for the first time each turn, destroy target noncreature permanent that source’s controller controls.
: Return target permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.
: Create three 0/0 colorless Spirit creature tokens, then put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.