Always look forward to your articles – they always make me examine what I think or my reactions to the flavor and art of the game.
I hate the Planeswalkers. Period. Almost – I do like Tamiyo, she’s the only one that isn’t a generic trope with a problematic backstory.
I was inclined to like Tibalt but I feel like Creative missed the point of Devils in general and gave him a black flavored backstory undermining his value as a red Planeswalker that might be fun or make sense.
That said taking the article in it’s own spirit – which is design based and related interpreting the cards mechanics in relation to their flavor I respectfully disagree with you on Sorin.
( and find myself now defending a Planeswalker or two dammit)
Here I am new(returning) to Magic and there are these Planeswalker cards – I don’t have access to the backstory. All I’ve seen is the stupid DotP 2012 opening animation that proves that Planeswalkers are a bunch of entitled spoiled brats that fight with each other for what practically looks like colorpie based nationalism. Gideon Jura is supposed to be some tragic hero, the animation is so tropey and full of tropes and half assed animation I cannot listen to it more than once.
Now I play the game – I see his mechanic – it doesn’t say anything to me other than mechanics. It tells me everyone wants to fight him, he can be a targeted assassin and then eventually he gets so pissed off he goes off and fights with and just like a human. He’s Marty McFly – don’t call him Chicken.
That’s the flavor of his mechanic with the amount of exposure a new player has to the game. He doesn’t carry loyalty as a kind of idea – if you see his “story” through DOTP he’s just macho dude.
Garruk Wildspeaker was born and raised on a FARM? HUH? WTF –
Once again as a new player that is not only news to me but asinine. If you’re setting him up to be “wildman beasthunter” and pretty much Enkidu: Flavor Fail. I already hated pretty much everything about him in terms of how the Garruk/Lilliana enmity set WotC up for so many problematic visuals and interpretations because of their visual character design, but now i find out he wasn’t a native of forests but came from the basic foundation of actual civilization?
So basically he doesn’t even have wildman streecred? And yet I’m about to defend his mechanic as flavor:
* He is about wildness in nature – he untaps ( frees) land that has been cultivated ( tapped)
* He brings beasts with him – not domesticated animals
* He inspires everything to be bestial and ferocious and run amok – even your sanctuary cat.
His mechanics are perfect for his flavor and visuals – however if he was born on a farm the problem is is his story.
Everything you dislike about Sorin is the reason I think Sorin is one of the few planeswalker cards that make sense to change at all ( really, if they’re going to be flagship brand totems and tropes I’m not sure they should change release to release unless they change like Sorin).
The only reason I like Sorin at all is when I found out his backstory and that he created Avacyn he was no longer tropey-eurotrash-vampire Planeswalker living out some marketing guy’s fantasy, he was a character that was complex, with shades of gray and the most interesting story in the entire Innistrad block.
He is the Vampire Lord of a feudal style society in Innistrad and when he comes back he has retainers and he’s about to got to war and put some righteous smackdown on the other vamps
*mechanic – Put a vampire onto the field
The Vampires and monsters have gotten completely out of control and are endangering the balance that he set up. so he’s bringing his side to battle to right it – fight on his side and you and yours will all get a mojo bonus. But he’s busy so he might not stick around, you can keep the bonus
*mechanic – emblem +1/+0
And this is HIS home plane dammit – you will obey the rules he set down and he doesn’t care what kind of creature you are or if you are from around here – while you are on his plane you will do what HE says and if you fight him he will kick your ass until you start over and behave.
*mechanic – Destroy three creatures and or/planeswalkers bring them back under your control . (which includes all their enter the battlefield whatevers)
You’re in Sorin’s world now. Even you Lilly and Garruk – take it somewhere else.
This is the opposite of flavorless – it’s the only flavor that I’ve seen that feels tied in with the set and story and I was really, really sorry that so many of the cards were based on the useless outsider story of Lilliana and Garruk when the real story was Sorin and Avacyn, we got like one background article that explained the relationship between both and weird cards that weren’t good enough to make constructed play on the regular to represent them or carry that part of the story. So I agree that there might be design based issues, but Garruk ( whom I hate) is clearly well designed for Vorthos Flavor as consistent with his identity and Sorin is beautifully designed BECAUSE of the story of the block he was in, and isn’t that actually the true epitome of Vorthos synergy?
BTW – where do I find out that Garruk was a farm boy? – I need something that isn’t politics to distract my curmudgeonly rage someplace safer : )
If I were going to make a planeswalker it would be an Old Lady Planeswalker.
