Dude at my first ever magic event, 16 year old me pulled a Sphinx' Revelation ($25 at the time) and the dude sitting next to me traded me a fkn Tibalt for it after the prerelease. "It's a planeswalker so it's gotta be good" god i was so dumb 🤣
I actually like Huatli, Radiant Champion in EDH, just because her abilities gel with the format much better. First, the four player nature tends towards gummy boardstates and makes Planeswalkers less of a target-after all, you’ve got two other people to worry about. Her second ability also helps pump up your commander to more easily threaten 21 commander damage. The emblem also lacks the “nontoken” stipulation, which turns token producers into crazy draw engines-and in a format where consistency is kneecapped and games tend to go very long, card advantage is king.
That's kind of the problem, TheManaLogs entirely ignores EDH even though it's still the most popular format in Magic by far, most of their analysis of worst cards falls apart because so many of them work better in multiplayer, or slower, higher CMC formats with strategies that do well in EDH.
@@ReyosBlackwood tbh for MTG top 10 I prefer Nizzahon cause he actually plays magic, and base on some data to back up his list. Especially for the worst cards top 10 he usually refference EDH as well because if they don't even get to see play in EDH mean they are pretty much hopeless
Goldmane was used in standard back in it's day IIRC due to token decks. Just used the 1/1 counters ability over and over until the opponent died. They also weren't sure what planeswalkers were capable of since they were a brand new card type.
@@Y0G0FU I've got a planeswalker that does the 1/1 counter thing passively, on attack. (Gideon Oathsworn), That's so bad as an ability it's now a passive.
@@Y0G0FU Indeed, and thats the wrinkle in assessing cards from Magic's vast history, all of the Lorwyn ones seemed to err on the side of caution regarding power levels due to being a brand new card type, Mr Goldman was quite handy in the White Weenie decks of the time, buffing assiorted 1 and 2 drop Kithkin alog the Spectral Procession flyers or even Cloudgoat Ranger with a perfect curve out was most likely the 2nd best of the first wave behiind OG Wildspeaker (an arguement could be made for Jace but Fairys was so over the curve he was just a win more sort thing for them)
Huatli has a specific role, and that is to be the top end in a token deck. If you have 4 creatures on board when you activate her +1 ability (Which is fairly easy in those type of decks), that sets her up to Ult range on the following turn (And likely enough chump blockers to see to it). From there, you basically hit critical mass with card advantage (As even something like Raise the Alarm allows you to draw 2 cards). The Emblem is effectively Beck // Call, as it does not care about you casting creatures (Unlike Beast Whisperer) and is optional (So you will not deck yourself because of it).
@@tylercosner4509 Felidar Retreat is also a nice inclusion if you are wanting to go in more on the landfall value train (Or as a potential fallback token generator/wincon).
Isn't it infinitely easier to just play Shamanic Revelation or something similar? Huatli needs at least 4 creatures (Shamanic is okayish if you have just 2 or 3) AND needs to survive a turn AND needs you to have future creatures. In a game that goes very very long (I'm guessing you're talking about Commander), I guess having the emblem makes sense. In any other situation, a one-time draw-a-lot seems so much better.
Her -1 looks _DEVASTATING_ if you can get a one or 2 creatures with double strike on the board. Even something like "can only be blocked by more than one creature" could be helpful. @Fernando Banda her emblem can potentially pop turn 4 in a ramp deck. You're basically using it to get even more aggressive since it turns all the creatures in your hand from -1 to +0 and if she somehow survives turn 4, you just use her +1, restore her counters and just -1 her on something with a nasty ability (poison, double strike, conditional blocking, protection, etc) and force your opponent to deal with the attack somehow or take lethal.
@@fernandobanda5734 It's hard to really compare the two. Shamanic Revelation is a 5-mana draw spell that requires you to have at least 4 bodies on board (And hopefully decently stated) in order to be better than Harmonize. Huatli is a Planeswalker that can generate a sizable amount of loyalty (In decks that are normally good at protecting her from combat). Even with only have 1 body on board, her +1 makes it so that she can Ult in 2 turns. Even without the Ult, she has the ability to give Might of the Masses to a creature every turn (Effectively converting a wide threat to a tall one). While Huatli isn't the greatest Planeswalkers, she does have a clear purpose. I still think she's way better than something like Niko Aris.
Ajani Goldmain was in LSV's top 8 black while tokens Pro Tour deck. He's actually fantastic, just not broad enough to see play outside go-wide strategies. That's not a bad thing though, because most are only good in the right deck.
He was also great with Kitchen Finks since his +1/+1 counters could cancel out with their -1/-1 counters to be able to persist again and again. Sure he seems bad now but he was great back in the day and could still be good with enough persist and/or proliferate.
@@juliandacosta6841 if a creature has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter, they cancel eachother out and are both removed by state based effects.
Yeah. I played mono U tempo back then, and at first glance I though Mu Yanling was crappy. But it was actually pretty good and after testing it this card got 2 slots in my deck. Usually it just made a single token but a flying 4/4 for 3 mana that forces the opponent to deal with a planeswalker is already pretty good. I don't remember Hualti (and Dovin) being played in competitive but they were played in some low tier standard decks.
The thing with a lot of these is that you don't mention how good they are in the specifics niches they fill and instead are basically just in the "I'm gonna build Atraxa superfriends" mindset. Like with Hualti, Radiant Champion, her +1 is meant to appeal to one of the top selesnya/naya strats of all time, being tokens. And also having at least four creatures out by the time you get Huatli out in selesnya is easy so idk why it's being seen as this huge endeavor in the reasoning
But that Tibalt has a history In the in game lore, he was supposed to be a random character for Sorin (a REALLY powerful Planeswalker) to fight, he was even supposed to die upon his intro, he just stayed because there are very few characters in MTG who are borderline insane
Mu Yanglin, Sky Dancer is actually a really nice support planeswalker. It's probably not gonna win you the game, unless you really go ham with that 4/4 bird token, but the -2/-0 and loses flying is actually pretty relevant, especially against creature decks. Sometimes slowing down your opponent by that 2 damage multiple times is game changing in the early game
There are way worse walkers than Mu Yanling, especially at 3 mana. A good walker typically needs to have at least one ability that protects itself to be good, and not only does she have that, but it's at +2 loyalty. Sure, it's not as good at protecting as creating a creature token (that can absorb more than 2 damage) or outright stopping something from attacking, possibly by removing the threat outright, but +2 on a self-protecting ability is nice. Plus, she's in blue - y'know, the control color. More than likely you can keep them down to their smallest creature (which you neuter with Mu) through your other spells.
Gideon, Champion of Justice was the first Planeswalker I ever pulled. I was so excited and jammed it in my GW token deck. I dont remember if I ever pulled off the ultimate, but I just really liked him.
Compared to the rest, Ajani Goldmane actually saw successfull competitive play. Back in the day, you only used him for its -1 and with a bunch of Kithkins or token based decks after that. Sure, he has not aged like wine but it is at least more playable than the rest of the list. The other that i will give some slack is Huatli, she is still not good but i have seen her using her ult in commander games, the only place were she can actually function.
I do like that this list was restricted to Mythics because lower rarity cards tend to be less powerful intentionally. I don't think they any of these are unplayable they just need the right deck to shine. Chandra Ablaze is one where she wasn't printed with a whole lot of support to help her. She likes Maddness and can work extremely well with it. Also the fact she doesn't exile the cards from your graveyard really helps her because you can do some really stupid things with it. I've actually had success with Tibalt, mostly in commander. Surprisingly the disrespect people have for him can work against them. Had this one game where I was just sitting there ticking up Tibalt while they were building up their board and I was able to take all their stuff slap them with it for the win, this actually wasn't a commander game. There is this card from Neon Dynasty called Containment Construct that can make Tibalt's +1 usable. He is still not anywhere 'good' but he isn't as bad as he was with some more support.
Ajani Goldmane had a really fun combo with the ult tho. In the same set that he came out, I think, there were enchantments to give double strike and lifelink respectively. Your life total would triple every battle phase, and the avatar's stats would also triple. It was insane when it worked.
You could still use Nissa's search ability if you want to just shuffle your library as you can fail to find as that ability is giving you a specific quality of the card to search for (AKA card name). So if you hit a land pocket or a nonland pocket, you have an option to shuffle your library whenever you need to as long as Nissa stays alive.
I once placed top 24 in nationals using Sarkhan The Mad in standard, it was a really weird deck that primarily used his -2 ability to get rid of Abyssal Persecutor after getting my opponents below zero. There were other ways to sac the demon, but this card (2 of them in the deck) provided ways to do some of the interesting interactions, I also ran that sparkmage haste creature with the lifelink and deathtouch equipment.
i would definitely say, Hautli and Ajani are actually not too bad in token decks, espically in certain formats, the problem is they are relegated to specific rolls that hold them back, make them less flexible or at least being worthwhile to flex into something because there are better options for those specific niches or styles.
Gideon Champion of Justice is pretty funny against certain combos though. I was running a landfall deck and had just cast a kicked Rite of Replication on my Avenger of Zendikar for ludicrous amounts of tokens. Then my friend played a Gideon, used his +1, and cast a creature board wipe, leaving him with a 100+ loyalty Gideon.
MYSD is actually really good as a sideboard option in Azorius Control, and in some matchups even outperforms T3feri (a planeswalker so good he had to be banned out of Pioneer and Modern). Her +2 basically turns off most aggressive creatures in the format, so she can plus up and slow down the enemy attack. The 4/4 token blocks really well and also poses a threat. She basically just does everything that Azorius Control wants to do
0:22 Do a failed mechanics video on Planeswalker Decks if possible. The fact the Planeswalkers there are designed to be unplayable in constructed formats clearly shows why those decks are unpopular. Also, as for the worst Planeswalker deck Planeswalker, according to Nizzahon, it's Mu Yanling, Celestial Wind. Also, do the Top 10 Planeswalker deck Planeswalkers.
I love nizzahon but sometimes his takes are kind of off. I do think Mu is REALLY close to being the worst but I still think tibalt is worse. Atleast Mu can defend herself.
The decks were supposed to be for beginners, so it really doesn't matter that they're bad in Constructed. Regular planeswalkers (even mediocre ones) are incredibly unfair when you're collection is just a few commons and uncommons, much like they are in Limited.
An Insurrection effect is good in multiplayer, particularly commander, BUT it must be noted that attaching it a clock makes it far, far worse because it gives each opponent that much time to interact. The opponent has four turn to prevent Tibalt's ultimate, but in an average game of commander they have TWELVE.
I actually run Sarkhan the Mad in my Ur Dragon deck and I really like it there. The 0 is some card draw in a pinch, the minus is the only instance of targeted sacrifice I can think of and can be really nice removal sometimes, and the ult can hit as soon as he comes down and closes out a lot of games. There are so many times where you can swing all and then hit someone for basically double damage in second main or swing all at one player and then hit another with the ult. It's at least fast enough to include in an aggressive creature based deck.
I really don’t get why Sarkhan is on this list, even at #10. A 5 mana sorcery that reads “If you have enough Dragons, kill target player” seems pretty good to me, and his other abilities are ok too
Tibalt is an example of Wotc experimenting with 'walkers. Now that we have the one Chandra from War of the Spark that can add loyalty to other red 'walkers a lot of the weaker walkers can see more use.
Ajani Goldmane saw a lot of use back in Lorwyn/Alara Standard. The mono-white deck would use it as a triple anthem to enhance all your cheap creatures.
I'm glad someone else remembers that, it was brutal in WB Tokens Bitterblossom + Ajani. That deck took 2 spots in Pro Tour Kyoto in '09, and was also in Worlds '08 Kithkin deck, that took 3rd when the meta was Faeries or die.
@@goingtroughchanges8257 I'm pretty sure Ajani was the best walker from the original batch. It's funny how people ignore the second ability because the first one is so bad.
I once went up against someone who made an Avatar with Goldmane's ability and attacked me I blocked it with Mogg Maniac, which deals damage to a player when it blocks a creature they control equal to the amount of damage they took
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a lot of planeswalkers suffer the same fate of "win more" design, the only time they work at their full potential is when you have a full board, and at that point, you are probably already winning, unless its a board stall, but in that case it'd be better to topdeck a removal spell or a finisher that could more efficiently break the stall.
I see some problems here since mythic rares versus ordinary rares don't quite work as mythic rares were introduced after planeswalkers. Additionally several of these planeswalkers are from the first three or four years of planeswalkers. As time has marched on planeswalkers have become more refined in how they work, and the power level of cards has steadily creeped up due to hasbro executives. Many of these planeswalkers saw a lot of play in standard (where almost all planeswalkers were designed for) But like most cards fail to take hold in modern, pioneer, legacy, or vintage. ... you're 100% correct on Tibalt though.
Back when MTG Arena came out i played Ajani Goldmane Beatdown decks that focused on getting many Ajanis on the field, get absurd life totals and every turn buff my creatures higher with the -1 abillity :D It worked pretty well until they released further sets with more and better answers to this :P
It was funny to see Huatli on here. I built a sliver Brawl deck with her as the commander and she actually ends up being disgusting most games. I'm sure there are much better choices, but i really like her. In a sliver deck her ultimate is pretty trivial to get off, and her second ability becomes the actual kill ability.
One of my two mono-red EDH decks is what I call "The Chandra Fanboy Club," and it's just every copy of Chandra until War of the Spark, Goblins, and Torbran as Commander of the Club. It is... surprisingly strong. Like, I had to swap some cards out because I kept winning too much, and it would upset the playgroup strong. In head canon, the Chandra Club is fighting because they heard gossip that the opponents hate Chandra, whether it's true or not.
They have to tone down the power of planeswalkers that are printed at 2 mana - who knew?! 🙃 I mean, yeah, Tibalt is bad, but would you rather a 2 mana walker *not* be bad and actually be playable? 🤢 A lot of this list ended up being: 1. Early generations of walkers (Lorwyn, Zendikar) while they didn't have the balance of them downpat (after all, JTMS also came out in Zendikar block). 2. Cheap walkers that have to have weaker abilities in order to not dominate the metagame (after all, you see when we get strong 3 mana walkers like Lilliana of the Veil and 3feri how obnoxious things get) 3. Gideon being treated like a true walker, instead of the quirky pseudo-creature that he is.
I'd love to see people's takes on how to make these atleast viable by changing as little as possible, like for instance making Tibalt's +1 *"Target player* draws a card and discards one at random"
Occasionally downgrading the opponents hand is not going to jump him to viability. Reversing the order of the draw and discard could at least let him draw a card in an empty hand. But even putting both of those together isn't going to make him not an F
@@freddiesimmons1394 Yeah, it was just a suggestion. My goal of the comment was to see what people would come up with while still keeping the "spirt" of the card intact so to speak, He'd need buffs to every one of his abilities inorder to be playable
@@Oxygen1004 I mean if the first ability was +2 he'd possibly be good enough as sideboard material vs slow decks. They can't just take a 2 mana lava axe.
I have a soft spot for Tibalt, but only because he was the first Planeswaker I ever pulled. Then about a week later they released the duel decks Sorin vs Tibalt, and I felt like crap.
The card game that I've been tooling around with is heavily based on the VS system, and I'm biased, but I feel like it's my favorite way of doing a resource card system, but was hampered by some of the surrounding mechanics. 2-card draw per turn makes it so you never stop curving, and resources having an inherent +1 (or +0.5) means that they were not really allowed to be that strong. Instead I'm working on variable draw power, sort of inspired by MtG's commander format, where your choice of a character as a [insert non-infringing "commander" term] gets you conditional draw so you're at some fraction between 1 and 2 draws per turn on average that gets more costly over time, for a less automatic curve. And to solve the +1 of activatable resource cards, you need to "recharge" any card you activate with a cost based on the card before it can count towards your resources again, meaning you can get that +1, but it will cost you tempo, with weaker cards being free or nearly free, and stronger cards being closer to something like Horizon Canopy or Scavenger Grounds in MTG, where you're basically sacrificing it as a resource in order to get its effect.
Sarkhan can just take opponents out of the game in ur dragon decks, and huatli given she can be protected is just beast whisperer as a passive in an emblem which can't be removed.
Half this deck list is in my Falco superfirends deck as being very cheap planeswalkers with abilities that grow thier loyalty fast, which is more important than anything else as the deck runs ichormoon gauntlet.
@Random Cat Name as stand-alone planswakers in a 1v1 format they are kinda bad, but in superfirends, dragon God, or ichormoon decks they are fine. This list simply doesn't take outside factors into account.
@@randomcatname7792 I don’t actually think that’s true if you don’t include planes walkers that are designed to be bad. These saw standard set releases and most of those kinds of planes walkers are actually pretty good. Even War of the Spark bulk uncommon/rare ones. I mean some of these are okay in commander but I don’t think he considers commander and he probably shouldn’t because you can get away with mad bad cards in commander due to the nature of the format.
I would say niko aris and maybe Jace cunning castaway, Chandra nalaar, Elspeth sun's nemesis, Kasmina enigma sage, Ajani vengeant all seem like contenders to me.
I got a hard disagree on some of these. Mu and dovan Are both able to protect themselves. So while they weren't great cards any walker that can defend itself is at least a solid C. Also ajani dosnt read good now but back in the day he was a solid card in token decks.
I mean, "worst 10" doesn't mean they're necessarily bad - it just mean they are worse than other options. Which PWs would you have considered for the list instead?
im aware but Ajan was a serious card in his day and the worst Planeswalkers tend to hit the board and do nothing. Id say other bad ones that should be here are Liliana of the Dark Relms, Samut the Tested and Jaya Ballard
@@CidAghast It's true that all those three cards might've been good candidates - and certainly had much less of a historical record than Ajani Goldmane did. But I'm not 100% sure they're actually worse in terms of sheer powerlevel, which I believe is what this video is going for. For example, I'd argue that Liliana of the Dark Realms is actually stronger than Ajani Goldmane - her +1 is actual card advantage, minor as it may be (I'd rather draw a Swamp than gain 2 life most time), her -3 can actually kill stuff, and her ult is a bit more likely to actually end the game in a hurry than Ajani's is
@@zarator7429 I mean context for magic cards is everything. Like Savage Knuckleblade looked and seems like an amazing card but the context it existed it made it kinda a wet fart
I use that Sarkhan a lot, mostly because of the fact he requires no protection to get the most out of him. Does have the disadvantage that he's only useful if, one, you're running dragons, and two have a reasonable amount of them. But he's been my finishing move more than once
Huatli, while not a great card ofc, is really good in token decks in edh due to her ulti which triggering upon tokens etb. I have used her quite effectively a few times to draw a ludicrous amount of cards. I just cast her once i have assembled 4 or more creatures so that she gets to 8+ loyalty right away and have creatures to protect her for 1 round.
9:57 In my “pir and toothy” deck this jace can use his ult in the second turn, or, if i bring him with a proliferate, in the same turn (It enters with 1 more loyalty)
@@fernandobanda5734 Because of Pir, Jace enters with 5+1 loyalty counters. Then you use the + ability to get another 1+1 loyalty counters. He will be at 8 loyalty counters allowing you to ultimate on the second turn. If you have a single proliferate effect, you can use that instead of Jace's + ability to get the needed 2 loyalty counters, and can ultimate him that turn.
Huatli looks to have a niche in more aggro token/low CMC decks where you play as many creatures as you can, as fast as possible. Her +1 is extremely aggressive in lettting her stay on the board, her -1 is potentially game ending (giant growth a 2/2 double striker with at least 4 other creatures on the field and GG) And her -8 basically lets everything creature you play go +0 instead of -1... and considering how fast GW can ramp and dump creatures onto the field, it wouldn't be unheard of to pop her emblem turn 4. She's weak to board wipes, but pretty much all creature focused decks are.
"a 2/2 double striker with at least 4 other creatures on the field" At that point, you should probably just play Giant Growth. Like, it's not Huatli that's responsible for most of that damage.
@@fernandobanda5734 thing is, that 2/2 doublestriker balloons out to a 10/10 doublestriker with her ability and giant growth (+3/+3 with giant growth and an additional +5/+5 with the ability). With something to give it some kind of evasion (which both White and Green have some access to), it's GG And I was assuming mostly 1/1s tbh
@@NeroLordofChaos If you really want to combo in with a double striker, just play a big pump spell. Maybe Become Immense if Giant Growth is too low impact. And if you are doing that, why play a go-wide strategy at all? Again, the scenario seems cool and all, but isn't really a showcase of Huatli's power. That +5/+5 can be accomplished much more easily than by playing a planeswalkers that requires other 4 creatures.
I would say she is more of a grindy card, her plus generally and easily makes 3+ or more as would probably run cards that give you multiple bodies, making her pretty hard to remove without direct pw removal. Her ult is also pretty achievable because of this and if you get that down you will most likely no longer run out of recourses. After that you just use her minus to grind away at the opponent and her plus if she gets too low. Not the most amazing game plan, but not the worst either i would say.
Sarkhan's only use is to play him when your opponent has less health than your dragons have attack for a nice finisher. Essentially, he's a sorcery dressed as a planeswalker ^^
Huatli goes very good in my arcades deck. Spam defenders, put huatli down, +1 her for crazy loyalty, wait a turn, ult her, then repeat if possible. The doubled card draw on arcades trigger is very nice.
You know Tibalt kind of puts into perspective how powerful tutoring is in commander. Gamble is a card that for one red mana lets you search your library for any card then you have to discard a card at random. Gamble (while being the weakest of the 1 mana tutors) is still considered quite playable (at least from what more experienced players I’ve talked to say) despite the downside of a random discard. Drawing a card is not an upside worth that downside but pulling any one card from your deck IS.
I mean if your running cards like gamble it's safe to assume that you put something in your deck incase the card you searched for is discarded like past in flames/other flashback effects, reanimation type effect for creatures, or putting it back into your hand or library.
Gideon is so bad he was a key card in a deck that won like 3 pro tours and a few Grand prix while in standard. where none of the others on the list even cracked a top 16. I think you mis-rated him mostly because you maybe woefully undervaluing his second ability
You are sleeping on Mu yanling, she is a control planeswalker, if you play mass removal of creatures and have a Mu Yanling card in play you more or less have a lock on the gamestate, at least creature based. It's mana value of 3 let's you play her fairly soon and just before the vast majority of mass removal. She does suffer with highly aggressive turn 1 and 2 creature plays tho, but that doesn't make her one of the worst in my opinion
Dovin and Huatli are super good in go-wide decks. Dovin and a bunch of fliers can snowball like crazy and I can't even count the number of evasive 1-cost dorks that were in his standard, but I remember Healer's Hawk being everywhere. Huatli goes even crazier since she enables a hand-vomit strategy and you can VERY easily stack her emblems to draw two or even three cards. Absolute nonsense with token generators and since it's an emblem, you have to brick hard on draws to run out of gas when she's popped ult. Amazing weenie support. EDIT: having sifted through JUST Arena walkers at mythic in standard release sets, Kaladesh Dovin seems worse, Ellywick Tumblestrum from Forgotten Realms is simply bad, Dominara Jaya is terrible, Niko Aris from Kaldheim is godawful, Jace from both Ixalan AND Zendikar rising are terribad, M19 Lilianna is essentially unplayable for what it does, Samut the Tested from Ahmonkhet sucks bad. Mostly bad takes, do more than five minutes of research, next time.
Does this channel look at cards in a vacuum or take into account the history? Because Ajani 1.0 was played to great success thanks to kitchen finks and spectral procession.
Good video but some more "this is usually what this Planewswalker does" would add some context to the video. Nissa for example is often more about lands or generic "Green stuff" not Elves.
@@fernandobanda5734 ... it wouldn't? I think it would just be helpful to illustrate how bad some of these walkers are. A proper version of "life gain matters" Ajani vs the one in the video for example.
@@GreatgoatonFire Comparing power seems useful, like they did with Jace. I just don't get what would be brought to the table by mentioning that Nissa normally isn't about Elves. Like there's not even a useful comparison between Nissas.
I simply don't agree that Sarkhan the Mad is bad. His -2 is really good, and you can do it 3 times. His 0 ability deals damage to himself, which means that damage can be prevented.
I will die on the hill that sarkhan the mad is great in dragon tribal edh decks. If you have a board up it basically reads 5 mana kill someone instantly. Also nissa revane can gain a ton of life and expand your board a bit in elfball edh decks. Ik this list focuses on 60 card formats but I think it's worth mentioning
It's amusing that the uncommon PWs were intentionally left off this list, yet War of the Spark's Tibalt is actually better than Avacyn Restored's Tibalt despite the former being uncommon and the latter being mythic.
Nissa is great in my Ezuri edh deck, but that's diffrent I know. She gives me a free elf, then gains me 10 life every turn. She also isn't worth targeting when you've got 15 elfs you can regen, but I've only ever gotten the ult 2 times despite using the deck for years. One of those times I got board wiped and couldn't save them all 😢
Some pretty bad analysis in this video, particularly because after setting all those conditions they neglect to include commander, still probably the most commonly played format of magic even though it sees very little high level competitive play, and some of the "worst" cards listed come out very differently if looked at from a multiplayer lens. Gideon, Champion of Justice for instance doesn't have the same risk of your opponents not running creatures, since the format has more than one opponent and at least one will have a board (most will since being open in multiplayer is a great way to die, even if you want to be a spellslinger) or the selesnya walker counting your own board state in the most famously token heavy color combination in all of magic, And Goldmane being able to pump and vigilance your entire field multiple times makes him decent in those same decks. This channel really seems to favor one game type and one play style an analyses all cards in the vacuum of how good they are for, or against, that.
You are definitely incorrect about goldmane, while he was in standard there was a popular deck with tokens that played cards like spectral procession. So you would curve three into four
I dunno if Tibalt is worse then Chandra, because at least with Tibalt, you can Chaos warp him into a high-value Planeswalker instead, spending only 5 mana over two turns to get out a 7+ mana walker. It's at least more usable then that Chandra.
I've seen Mu Yanling multiple time in duel commander, in bird/flying deck. Setting up birds and lowering my creature power was quite anoying. When youbgo first and can play mu yanling t2 and a 4/4 bird t3 is quite strong
hautli isnt held back by her abilities, shes held back by her mana cost, that 1 white mana changes her from broken to top end for gw humans elves with hautli would be the most broken thing ever, u would turn 3/4 ultimate every game u drew her elves run like 12-16 lands and a LOT of mana creatures, so turn 1 u drop land + mana elf, turn 2 drop 2 elves (probably no land) on 3 if u have the 4rth elf u can play her and get her to 8 loyalty on play
I run a modern mono blue Illusions deck, which combined with Mu Yangling’s plus ability actually keeps it on the board for much longer than I initially expect. Certainly not top tier, but board control and counterspells combined with some beefy bois it’s very fun to play, not something you can say playing 4c Yorion or Murktide.
Sarkhan's -4 alone makes him actually pretty damn good for a dragon commander deck. That's an easy killing blow if he resolves being cast. Huatli is AMAZING for commander. Green white can poop out the most tokens on the field easily. Having a ton of token blockers, paired with a card who will be very hard to remove with how quickly she generates loyalty, is nuts. Then we look at her -1, which is a low hit on herself and makes you a massive creature. Her ultimate doesn't even have a high cost to her, and will give you insane card draw in a token deck. I don't see why she's on this list unless we're exclusively talking constructed (standard, modern, ect) play. Saying tibalt can have a place in commander is laughable. He's extremely fragile and slow. For his ult to go off, you need to go 5 turns (4 to gain the loyalty and the 5th to ult) and the opponents need to have a big enough board to justify it. If your opponents have creatures worth taking, tibalt will be dead long before then ANYWAY. ESPECIALLY in commander.
Not gonna lie, one of the ways I've always wanted to win in EDH was Tibalt's ult plus Breath Of Fury. Never got it but did get a win by using his -4 once.
Yeah but are there any Planeswalkers (that are both mythic and not from pre-con decks) that didn't top any pro-tour and weren't included here? And that, today, can also be considered to be worse than Ajani? I mean, maybe there are, I dunno for sure. But you got to keep in mind that PW is an inherently strong creature-type, and so a "Worst 10" list of those is STILL inevitably going to include at least SOME cards that are/were usable. Plus, if this "Worst 10" list is based on the cards' current power level, rather than their historical performance, then Ajani's past exploits don't necessarily mean much, considering there really weren't any other options back then as far as PWs were concerned.
Tibalt is good Sideboard against those who draw darn near Infinitely, like any Blue Boi with a card that eliminates Hand Size then draws 10+ cards. Tibalt makes them regret that decision with reckless abandon!
Nissa is actually pretty powerful in an elf deck, considering the elf token spam most of them do. You can easily get 10+lp every turn from the time you play her
I will never get over the emotional damage of going to Avacyn Restored prerelease. My friend pulls a Craterhoof, I pull a Tibalt.
eheheh same... i got Tibalt. 2 of my friends got Craterhoof :(
Tibalt is at least memorable. I pulled a playset of Decent into Madness over the course of that set.
You named off some good walkers that are meant to support your decks strategy. There are much worse walkers just saying....
Dude at my first ever magic event, 16 year old me pulled a Sphinx' Revelation ($25 at the time) and the dude sitting next to me traded me a fkn Tibalt for it after the prerelease. "It's a planeswalker so it's gotta be good" god i was so dumb 🤣
EEEmOITIonaal DAMage!!!!!!
I actually like Huatli, Radiant Champion in EDH, just because her abilities gel with the format much better. First, the four player nature tends towards gummy boardstates and makes Planeswalkers less of a target-after all, you’ve got two other people to worry about. Her second ability also helps pump up your commander to more easily threaten 21 commander damage. The emblem also lacks the “nontoken” stipulation, which turns token producers into crazy draw engines-and in a format where consistency is kneecapped and games tend to go very long, card advantage is king.
That's kind of the problem, TheManaLogs entirely ignores EDH even though it's still the most popular format in Magic by far, most of their analysis of worst cards falls apart because so many of them work better in multiplayer, or slower, higher CMC formats with strategies that do well in EDH.
@@ReyosBlackwood tbh for MTG top 10 I prefer Nizzahon cause he actually plays magic, and base on some data to back up his list. Especially for the worst cards top 10 he usually refference EDH as well because if they don't even get to see play in EDH mean they are pretty much hopeless
That is how I feel about Nissa Revane I use her in my most powerful deck where I gain a whole bunch of life and then swamp my opponents with Elves.
Goldmane was used in standard back in it's day IIRC due to token decks. Just used the 1/1 counters ability over and over until the opponent died. They also weren't sure what planeswalkers were capable of since they were a brand new card type.
has this dude even played magic? Goldmane was a deck staple back when he was first printed.
@@ianstewart7899 ofc he was. The mechanic was brand new. But given what good planeswalkers do these days Goldmane is shit :P
@@Y0G0FU I've got a planeswalker that does the 1/1 counter thing passively, on attack. (Gideon Oathsworn), That's so bad as an ability it's now a passive.
@@vert3432 for two more mana. It also doesn't give vigilance or effect creatures that entered this turn.
@@Y0G0FU Indeed, and thats the wrinkle in assessing cards from Magic's vast history, all of the Lorwyn ones seemed to err on the side of caution regarding power levels due to being a brand new card type, Mr Goldman was quite handy in the White Weenie decks of the time, buffing assiorted 1 and 2 drop Kithkin alog the Spectral Procession flyers or even Cloudgoat Ranger with a perfect curve out was most likely the 2nd best of the first wave behiind OG Wildspeaker (an arguement could be made for Jace but Fairys was so over the curve he was just a win more sort thing for them)
Huatli has a specific role, and that is to be the top end in a token deck. If you have 4 creatures on board when you activate her +1 ability (Which is fairly easy in those type of decks), that sets her up to Ult range on the following turn (And likely enough chump blockers to see to it). From there, you basically hit critical mass with card advantage (As even something like Raise the Alarm allows you to draw 2 cards). The Emblem is effectively Beck // Call, as it does not care about you casting creatures (Unlike Beast Whisperer) and is optional (So you will not deck yourself because of it).
I just thought of her combined with Scute Swarm
@@tylercosner4509 Felidar Retreat is also a nice inclusion if you are wanting to go in more on the landfall value train (Or as a potential fallback token generator/wincon).
Isn't it infinitely easier to just play Shamanic Revelation or something similar? Huatli needs at least 4 creatures (Shamanic is okayish if you have just 2 or 3) AND needs to survive a turn AND needs you to have future creatures. In a game that goes very very long (I'm guessing you're talking about Commander), I guess having the emblem makes sense. In any other situation, a one-time draw-a-lot seems so much better.
Her -1 looks _DEVASTATING_ if you can get a one or 2 creatures with double strike on the board. Even something like "can only be blocked by more than one creature" could be helpful.
@Fernando Banda her emblem can potentially pop turn 4 in a ramp deck. You're basically using it to get even more aggressive since it turns all the creatures in your hand from -1 to +0 and if she somehow survives turn 4, you just use her +1, restore her counters and just -1 her on something with a nasty ability (poison, double strike, conditional blocking, protection, etc) and force your opponent to deal with the attack somehow or take lethal.
@@fernandobanda5734 It's hard to really compare the two. Shamanic Revelation is a 5-mana draw spell that requires you to have at least 4 bodies on board (And hopefully decently stated) in order to be better than Harmonize.
Huatli is a Planeswalker that can generate a sizable amount of loyalty (In decks that are normally good at protecting her from combat). Even with only have 1 body on board, her +1 makes it so that she can Ult in 2 turns. Even without the Ult, she has the ability to give Might of the Masses to a creature every turn (Effectively converting a wide threat to a tall one).
While Huatli isn't the greatest Planeswalkers, she does have a clear purpose. I still think she's way better than something like Niko Aris.
Glad to see that Tibalt is still a top option in _something_ !
Ajani Goldmain was in LSV's top 8 black while tokens Pro Tour deck. He's actually fantastic, just not broad enough to see play outside go-wide strategies. That's not a bad thing though, because most are only good in the right deck.
He was also great with Kitchen Finks since his +1/+1 counters could cancel out with their -1/-1 counters to be able to persist again and again. Sure he seems bad now but he was great back in the day and could still be good with enough persist and/or proliferate.
He's great in lifegain decks for commander too. I've built Lathiel and he works really well in there.
@@TheDougWay persist only allows it to come back once unless you remove the -1/-1 counters
@@juliandacosta6841 if a creature has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter, they cancel eachother out and are both removed by state based effects.
I run him in a fairly good casual deck where I gain a ton of life, buffing my creatures into oblivion
I'm pretty sure both Huatli and Mu Yanling saw some competitive play back during their own standard formats.
Yeah. I played mono U tempo back then, and at first glance I though Mu Yanling was crappy. But it was actually pretty good and after testing it this card got 2 slots in my deck. Usually it just made a single token but a flying 4/4 for 3 mana that forces the opponent to deal with a planeswalker is already pretty good. I don't remember Hualti (and Dovin) being played in competitive but they were played in some low tier standard decks.
Huatli screams "token spam", to me. I used to run loyalty elves that could print tokens fast enough to make her pretty usable.
Thank you for not just putting 10 intro deck planeswalkers like other list on UA-cam.
Nah those need to get roasted.
@@Starsoulklr They are made to be bad.....while these ones are made with intent to be good but just sucked.
The thing with a lot of these is that you don't mention how good they are in the specifics niches they fill and instead are basically just in the "I'm gonna build Atraxa superfriends" mindset. Like with Hualti, Radiant Champion, her +1 is meant to appeal to one of the top selesnya/naya strats of all time, being tokens. And also having at least four creatures out by the time you get Huatli out in selesnya is easy so idk why it's being seen as this huge endeavor in the reasoning
But that Tibalt has a history
In the in game lore, he was supposed to be a random character for Sorin (a REALLY powerful Planeswalker) to fight, he was even supposed to die upon his intro, he just stayed because there are very few characters in MTG who are borderline insane
Mu Yanglin, Sky Dancer is actually a really nice support planeswalker. It's probably not gonna win you the game, unless you really go ham with that 4/4 bird token, but the -2/-0 and loses flying is actually pretty relevant, especially against creature decks. Sometimes slowing down your opponent by that 2 damage multiple times is game changing in the early game
There are way worse walkers than Mu Yanling, especially at 3 mana. A good walker typically needs to have at least one ability that protects itself to be good, and not only does she have that, but it's at +2 loyalty. Sure, it's not as good at protecting as creating a creature token (that can absorb more than 2 damage) or outright stopping something from attacking, possibly by removing the threat outright, but +2 on a self-protecting ability is nice. Plus, she's in blue - y'know, the control color. More than likely you can keep them down to their smallest creature (which you neuter with Mu) through your other spells.
Gideon, Champion of Justice was the first Planeswalker I ever pulled. I was so excited and jammed it in my GW token deck. I dont remember if I ever pulled off the ultimate, but I just really liked him.
Compared to the rest, Ajani Goldmane actually saw successfull competitive play. Back in the day, you only used him for its -1 and with a bunch of Kithkins or token based decks after that. Sure, he has not aged like wine but it is at least more playable than the rest of the list.
The other that i will give some slack is Huatli, she is still not good but i have seen her using her ult in commander games, the only place were she can actually function.
thank you for finally making a list like this while ignoring the "planeswalker deck" walkers that are designed to be unplayable either way.
I do like that this list was restricted to Mythics because lower rarity cards tend to be less powerful intentionally. I don't think they any of these are unplayable they just need the right deck to shine. Chandra Ablaze is one where she wasn't printed with a whole lot of support to help her. She likes Maddness and can work extremely well with it. Also the fact she doesn't exile the cards from your graveyard really helps her because you can do some really stupid things with it.
I've actually had success with Tibalt, mostly in commander. Surprisingly the disrespect people have for him can work against them. Had this one game where I was just sitting there ticking up Tibalt while they were building up their board and I was able to take all their stuff slap them with it for the win, this actually wasn't a commander game. There is this card from Neon Dynasty called Containment Construct that can make Tibalt's +1 usable. He is still not anywhere 'good' but he isn't as bad as he was with some more support.
A card being better because people don't rate it well doesn't mean it's good. It means the players are bad
I mean, they are all pretty specific cards that want specific builds.
Also Tibalt is the only planeswalker ever available in white border!
Wait really??
@@zaneghiskhanSort of. It's a Secret Lair Drop.
Mu yanling, sky dancer is a solid threat in 60-card formats.
I own 1 mu yanling. Do you recomend any decklist?
Ajani Goldmane had a really fun combo with the ult tho. In the same set that he came out, I think, there were enchantments to give double strike and lifelink respectively.
Your life total would triple every battle phase, and the avatar's stats would also triple. It was insane when it worked.
Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
You could still use Nissa's search ability if you want to just shuffle your library as you can fail to find as that ability is giving you a specific quality of the card to search for (AKA card name). So if you hit a land pocket or a nonland pocket, you have an option to shuffle your library whenever you need to as long as Nissa stays alive.
I once placed top 24 in nationals using Sarkhan The Mad in standard, it was a really weird deck that primarily used his -2 ability to get rid of Abyssal Persecutor after getting my opponents below zero. There were other ways to sac the demon, but this card (2 of them in the deck) provided ways to do some of the interesting interactions, I also ran that sparkmage haste creature with the lifelink and deathtouch equipment.
I've never considered pronouncing everything wrong to make people comment before and boost your algorithms. Smart lol.
i would definitely say, Hautli and Ajani are actually not too bad in token decks, espically in certain formats, the problem is they are relegated to specific rolls that hold them back, make them less flexible or at least being worthwhile to flex into something because there are better options for those specific niches or styles.
Before you comment how these planeswalkers are “good” remember these are just the “worst” ones planeswalkers are very hard to be bad 😅
Gideon Champion of Justice is pretty funny against certain combos though. I was running a landfall deck and had just cast a kicked Rite of Replication on my Avenger of Zendikar for ludicrous amounts of tokens. Then my friend played a Gideon, used his +1, and cast a creature board wipe, leaving him with a 100+ loyalty Gideon.
MYSD is actually really good as a sideboard option in Azorius Control, and in some matchups even outperforms T3feri (a planeswalker so good he had to be banned out of Pioneer and Modern). Her +2 basically turns off most aggressive creatures in the format, so she can plus up and slow down the enemy attack. The 4/4 token blocks really well and also poses a threat. She basically just does everything that Azorius Control wants to do
I hate that I had to spend 30 seconds figuring out what the heck you meant by MYSD.
Mu isn't *that* famous. Even if she was referenced in the video
0:22 Do a failed mechanics video on Planeswalker Decks if possible.
The fact the Planeswalkers there are designed to be unplayable in constructed formats clearly shows why those decks are unpopular.
Also, as for the worst Planeswalker deck Planeswalker, according to Nizzahon, it's Mu Yanling, Celestial Wind.
Also, do the Top 10 Planeswalker deck Planeswalkers.
I love nizzahon but sometimes his takes are kind of off. I do think Mu is REALLY close to being the worst but I still think tibalt is worse. Atleast Mu can defend herself.
The decks were supposed to be for beginners, so it really doesn't matter that they're bad in Constructed. Regular planeswalkers (even mediocre ones) are incredibly unfair when you're collection is just a few commons and uncommons, much like they are in Limited.
That's even more reason to cover them as they stopped making standard decks to release along their products for Commander decks.
I actually ran Chandra Ablaze in my mono red EDH deck. It had a lot of “ Threaten” effects. I actually like this card.
Sarkhan seems actually really good, in a changeling deck. Sure he can only do it once, but as a finisher...
Ive always had a love for the OG Gideon
An Insurrection effect is good in multiplayer, particularly commander, BUT it must be noted that attaching it a clock makes it far, far worse because it gives each opponent that much time to interact. The opponent has four turn to prevent Tibalt's ultimate, but in an average game of commander they have TWELVE.
I feel like tibalt’s abilities require the person(s) your playing against to not have any of the benefits of the decks it’s most effective against
I actually run Sarkhan the Mad in my Ur Dragon deck and I really like it there. The 0 is some card draw in a pinch, the minus is the only instance of targeted sacrifice I can think of and can be really nice removal sometimes, and the ult can hit as soon as he comes down and closes out a lot of games. There are so many times where you can swing all and then hit someone for basically double damage in second main or swing all at one player and then hit another with the ult. It's at least fast enough to include in an aggressive creature based deck.
I really don’t get why Sarkhan is on this list, even at #10. A 5 mana sorcery that reads “If you have enough Dragons, kill target player” seems pretty good to me, and his other abilities are ok too
Tibalt is an example of Wotc experimenting with 'walkers. Now that we have the one Chandra from War of the Spark that can add loyalty to other red 'walkers a lot of the weaker walkers can see more use.
Ajani Goldmane saw a lot of use back in Lorwyn/Alara Standard. The mono-white deck would use it as a triple anthem to enhance all your cheap creatures.
I'm glad someone else remembers that, it was brutal in WB Tokens Bitterblossom + Ajani. That deck took 2 spots in Pro Tour Kyoto in '09, and was also in Worlds '08 Kithkin deck, that took 3rd when the meta was Faeries or die.
@@goingtroughchanges8257 I'm pretty sure Ajani was the best walker from the original batch.
It's funny how people ignore the second ability because the first one is so bad.
I once went up against someone who made an Avatar with Goldmane's ability and attacked me
I blocked it with Mogg Maniac, which deals damage to a player when it blocks a creature they control equal to the amount of damage they took
It's amazing how some bad players just refuse to read cards
@@freddiesimmons1394 tbf it was my friend and we were doing a casual match at my house
Would be hilarious at a tournament tho 😅
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a lot of planeswalkers suffer the same fate of "win more" design, the only time they work at their full potential is when you have a full board, and at that point, you are probably already winning, unless its a board stall, but in that case it'd be better to topdeck a removal spell or a finisher that could more efficiently break the stall.
Tibalt:Oh shit here we go again.
Why is Ajani here? He saw pro tour play at the time
I see some problems here since mythic rares versus ordinary rares don't quite work as mythic rares were introduced after planeswalkers. Additionally several of these planeswalkers are from the first three or four years of planeswalkers. As time has marched on planeswalkers have become more refined in how they work, and the power level of cards has steadily creeped up due to hasbro executives. Many of these planeswalkers saw a lot of play in standard (where almost all planeswalkers were designed for) But like most cards fail to take hold in modern, pioneer, legacy, or vintage.
... you're 100% correct on Tibalt though.
Good video dude!
Back when MTG Arena came out i played Ajani Goldmane Beatdown decks that focused on getting many Ajanis on the field, get absurd life totals and every turn buff my creatures higher with the -1 abillity :D It worked pretty well until they released further sets with more and better answers to this :P
It was funny to see Huatli on here. I built a sliver Brawl deck with her as the commander and she actually ends up being disgusting most games. I'm sure there are much better choices, but i really like her.
In a sliver deck her ultimate is pretty trivial to get off, and her second ability becomes the actual kill ability.
... Nissa was a big part of a green elves deck in Standard at the time it was printed. Called Eldrazi Green, I think? Had Khalani Hydra too
0:22 That Gideon wasn't in an intro deck, lol. Martial Paragon was.
but the nissa is green and if you have a lot of ways to proliferate and have a elf tribal deck, chances are it will be devastating
One of my two mono-red EDH decks is what I call "The Chandra Fanboy Club," and it's just every copy of Chandra until War of the Spark, Goblins, and Torbran as Commander of the Club. It is... surprisingly strong. Like, I had to swap some cards out because I kept winning too much, and it would upset the playgroup strong.
In head canon, the Chandra Club is fighting because they heard gossip that the opponents hate Chandra, whether it's true or not.
They have to tone down the power of planeswalkers that are printed at 2 mana - who knew?! 🙃 I mean, yeah, Tibalt is bad, but would you rather a 2 mana walker *not* be bad and actually be playable? 🤢
A lot of this list ended up being:
1. Early generations of walkers (Lorwyn, Zendikar) while they didn't have the balance of them downpat (after all, JTMS also came out in Zendikar block).
2. Cheap walkers that have to have weaker abilities in order to not dominate the metagame (after all, you see when we get strong 3 mana walkers like Lilliana of the Veil and 3feri how obnoxious things get)
3. Gideon being treated like a true walker, instead of the quirky pseudo-creature that he is.
I'd love to see people's takes on how to make these atleast viable by changing as little as possible, like for instance making Tibalt's +1 *"Target player* draws a card and discards one at random"
I honestly think Mu could have dropped as UU and kept intact otherwise
Occasionally downgrading the opponents hand is not going to jump him to viability.
Reversing the order of the draw and discard could at least let him draw a card in an empty hand.
But even putting both of those together isn't going to make him not an F
@@freddiesimmons1394 Yeah, it was just a suggestion. My goal of the comment was to see what people would come up with while still keeping the "spirt" of the card intact so to speak, He'd need buffs to every one of his abilities inorder to be playable
@@Oxygen1004 I mean if the first ability was +2 he'd possibly be good enough as sideboard material vs slow decks. They can't just take a 2 mana lava axe.
Honestly, just remove the random and he'd be pretty great.
How good would some of these be in a commander deck with proliferate, allowing you to get loyalty faster for "free"?
Probably not. They’re bad when you don’t proliferate, and don’t win the game as much as other planeswalkers when you do proliferate.
I have a soft spot for Tibalt, but only because he was the first Planeswaker I ever pulled. Then about a week later they released the duel decks Sorin vs Tibalt, and I felt like crap.
Mu yangling is one of the planswalkers I have successfully ult'd it multiple times. Underrated
The card game that I've been tooling around with is heavily based on the VS system, and I'm biased, but I feel like it's my favorite way of doing a resource card system, but was hampered by some of the surrounding mechanics. 2-card draw per turn makes it so you never stop curving, and resources having an inherent +1 (or +0.5) means that they were not really allowed to be that strong. Instead I'm working on variable draw power, sort of inspired by MtG's commander format, where your choice of a character as a [insert non-infringing "commander" term] gets you conditional draw so you're at some fraction between 1 and 2 draws per turn on average that gets more costly over time, for a less automatic curve. And to solve the +1 of activatable resource cards, you need to "recharge" any card you activate with a cost based on the card before it can count towards your resources again, meaning you can get that +1, but it will cost you tempo, with weaker cards being free or nearly free, and stronger cards being closer to something like Horizon Canopy or Scavenger Grounds in MTG, where you're basically sacrificing it as a resource in order to get its effect.
Sarkhan can just take opponents out of the game in ur dragon decks, and huatli given she can be protected is just beast whisperer as a passive in an emblem which can't be removed.
Half this deck list is in my Falco superfirends deck as being very cheap planeswalkers with abilities that grow thier loyalty fast, which is more important than anything else as the deck runs ichormoon gauntlet.
Yeah this is one of his least accurate lists..
@Random Cat Name as stand-alone planswakers in a 1v1 format they are kinda bad, but in superfirends, dragon God, or ichormoon decks they are fine. This list simply doesn't take outside factors into account.
@@randomcatname7792 I don’t actually think that’s true if you don’t include planes walkers that are designed to be bad. These saw standard set releases and most of those kinds of planes walkers are actually pretty good. Even War of the Spark bulk uncommon/rare ones. I mean some of these are okay in commander but I don’t think he considers commander and he probably shouldn’t because you can get away with mad bad cards in commander due to the nature of the format.
@@randomcatname7792 What planeswalkers are worse than the ones here?
I would say niko aris and maybe Jace cunning castaway, Chandra nalaar, Elspeth sun's nemesis, Kasmina enigma sage, Ajani vengeant all seem like contenders to me.
I got a hard disagree on some of these.
Mu and dovan Are both able to protect themselves. So while they weren't great cards any walker that can defend itself is at least a solid C.
Also ajani dosnt read good now but back in the day he was a solid card in token decks.
I mean, "worst 10" doesn't mean they're necessarily bad - it just mean they are worse than other options. Which PWs would you have considered for the list instead?
im aware but Ajan was a serious card in his day and the worst Planeswalkers tend to hit the board and do nothing. Id say other bad ones that should be here are Liliana of the Dark Relms, Samut the Tested and Jaya Ballard
@@CidAghast It's true that all those three cards might've been good candidates - and certainly had much less of a historical record than Ajani Goldmane did. But I'm not 100% sure they're actually worse in terms of sheer powerlevel, which I believe is what this video is going for. For example, I'd argue that Liliana of the Dark Realms is actually stronger than Ajani Goldmane - her +1 is actual card advantage, minor as it may be (I'd rather draw a Swamp than gain 2 life most time), her -3 can actually kill stuff, and her ult is a bit more likely to actually end the game in a hurry than Ajani's is
@@zarator7429 I mean context for magic cards is everything. Like Savage Knuckleblade looked and seems like an amazing card but the context it existed it made it kinda a wet fart
I use that Sarkhan a lot, mostly because of the fact he requires no protection to get the most out of him. Does have the disadvantage that he's only useful if, one, you're running dragons, and two have a reasonable amount of them. But he's been my finishing move more than once
Huatli, while not a great card ofc, is really good in token decks in edh due to her ulti which triggering upon tokens etb. I have used her quite effectively a few times to draw a ludicrous amount of cards. I just cast her once i have assembled 4 or more creatures so that she gets to 8+ loyalty right away and have creatures to protect her for 1 round.
9:57
In my “pir and toothy” deck this jace can use his ult in the second turn, or, if i bring him with a proliferate, in the same turn
(It enters with 1 more loyalty)
The ultimate is -8. Do you give him three extra counters?
@@fernandobanda5734 Because of Pir, Jace enters with 5+1 loyalty counters. Then you use the + ability to get another 1+1 loyalty counters. He will be at 8 loyalty counters allowing you to ultimate on the second turn.
If you have a single proliferate effect, you can use that instead of Jace's + ability to get the needed 2 loyalty counters, and can ultimate him that turn.
Huatli looks to have a niche in more aggro token/low CMC decks where you play as many creatures as you can, as fast as possible. Her +1 is extremely aggressive in lettting her stay on the board, her -1 is potentially game ending (giant growth a 2/2 double striker with at least 4 other creatures on the field and GG) And her -8 basically lets everything creature you play go +0 instead of -1... and considering how fast GW can ramp and dump creatures onto the field, it wouldn't be unheard of to pop her emblem turn 4.
She's weak to board wipes, but pretty much all creature focused decks are.
"a 2/2 double striker with at least 4 other creatures on the field" At that point, you should probably just play Giant Growth. Like, it's not Huatli that's responsible for most of that damage.
@@fernandobanda5734 thing is, that 2/2 doublestriker balloons out to a 10/10 doublestriker with her ability and giant growth (+3/+3 with giant growth and an additional +5/+5 with the ability). With something to give it some kind of evasion (which both White and Green have some access to), it's GG
And I was assuming mostly 1/1s tbh
@@NeroLordofChaos If you really want to combo in with a double striker, just play a big pump spell. Maybe Become Immense if Giant Growth is too low impact. And if you are doing that, why play a go-wide strategy at all?
Again, the scenario seems cool and all, but isn't really a showcase of Huatli's power. That +5/+5 can be accomplished much more easily than by playing a planeswalkers that requires other 4 creatures.
I would say she is more of a grindy card, her plus generally and easily makes 3+ or more as would probably run cards that give you multiple bodies, making her pretty hard to remove without direct pw removal. Her ult is also pretty achievable because of this and if you get that down you will most likely no longer run out of recourses. After that you just use her minus to grind away at the opponent and her plus if she gets too low.
Not the most amazing game plan, but not the worst either i would say.
Number 1 really surprised me! 😬😬
I played a lot with Jace, the Living Guildpact back in the days of standard.
The "worst" videos are the best ones!
Sarkhan's only use is to play him when your opponent has less health than your dragons have attack for a nice finisher.
Essentially, he's a sorcery dressed as a planeswalker ^^
I'm a little surprised Jace, Mirror Mage isn't here. I alwayd thought that one was particularly underwhelming.
9:05 Fail to find??
Huatli goes very good in my arcades deck. Spam defenders, put huatli down, +1 her for crazy loyalty, wait a turn, ult her, then repeat if possible. The doubled card draw on arcades trigger is very nice.
You know Tibalt kind of puts into perspective how powerful tutoring is in commander.
Gamble is a card that for one red mana lets you search your library for any card then you have to discard a card at random.
Gamble (while being the weakest of the 1 mana tutors) is still considered quite playable (at least from what more experienced players I’ve talked to say) despite the downside of a random discard.
Drawing a card is not an upside worth that downside but pulling any one card from your deck IS.
I mean if your running cards like gamble it's safe to assume that you put something in your deck incase the card you searched for is discarded like past in flames/other flashback effects, reanimation type effect for creatures, or putting it back into your hand or library.
Gideon is so bad he was a key card in a deck that won like 3 pro tours and a few Grand prix while in standard. where none of the others on the list even cracked a top 16.
I think you mis-rated him mostly because you maybe woefully undervaluing his second ability
Dovin, Yanling and Huatli aren't that bad though. They're at least better than the chandra flipwalker
I made a pillow fort Gideon deck that won my locals 60 player standard tournament. It was probably the only format he is good in.
Would nissa revane be good in a colgari commander deck that is very elf heavy?
You are sleeping on Mu yanling, she is a control planeswalker, if you play mass removal of creatures and have a Mu Yanling card in play you more or less have a lock on the gamestate, at least creature based. It's mana value of 3 let's you play her fairly soon and just before the vast majority of mass removal. She does suffer with highly aggressive turn 1 and 2 creature plays tho, but that doesn't make her one of the worst in my opinion
Dovin and Huatli are super good in go-wide decks. Dovin and a bunch of fliers can snowball like crazy and I can't even count the number of evasive 1-cost dorks that were in his standard, but I remember Healer's Hawk being everywhere. Huatli goes even crazier since she enables a hand-vomit strategy and you can VERY easily stack her emblems to draw two or even three cards. Absolute nonsense with token generators and since it's an emblem, you have to brick hard on draws to run out of gas when she's popped ult. Amazing weenie support.
EDIT: having sifted through JUST Arena walkers at mythic in standard release sets, Kaladesh Dovin seems worse, Ellywick Tumblestrum from Forgotten Realms is simply bad, Dominara Jaya is terrible, Niko Aris from Kaldheim is godawful, Jace from both Ixalan AND Zendikar rising are terribad, M19 Lilianna is essentially unplayable for what it does, Samut the Tested from Ahmonkhet sucks bad.
Mostly bad takes, do more than five minutes of research, next time.
Sarkahn seems like a decent finisher for ur dragon/tiamat commander decks
Needs to include Space Beleren
I actually have a soft spot for self milling myself with Huatli in my Rhys deck
Does this channel look at cards in a vacuum or take into account the history? Because Ajani 1.0 was played to great success thanks to kitchen finks and spectral procession.
Good video but some more "this is usually what this Planewswalker does" would add some context to the video.
Nissa for example is often more about lands or generic "Green stuff" not Elves.
Why would that change the power evaluation though?
@@fernandobanda5734 ... it wouldn't?
I think it would just be helpful to illustrate how bad some of these walkers are.
A proper version of "life gain matters" Ajani vs the one in the video for example.
@@GreatgoatonFire Comparing power seems useful, like they did with Jace. I just don't get what would be brought to the table by mentioning that Nissa normally isn't about Elves. Like there's not even a useful comparison between Nissas.
To be fair to Jace, the Living Guildpact, that -3 isn't hard removal for color pie reasons.
I simply don't agree that Sarkhan the Mad is bad. His -2 is really good, and you can do it 3 times. His 0 ability deals damage to himself, which means that damage can be prevented.
I will die on the hill that sarkhan the mad is great in dragon tribal edh decks. If you have a board up it basically reads 5 mana kill someone instantly. Also nissa revane can gain a ton of life and expand your board a bit in elfball edh decks. Ik this list focuses on 60 card formats but I think it's worth mentioning
It's amusing that the uncommon PWs were intentionally left off this list, yet War of the Spark's Tibalt is actually better than Avacyn Restored's Tibalt despite the former being uncommon and the latter being mythic.
Nissa is great in my Ezuri edh deck, but that's diffrent I know. She gives me a free elf, then gains me 10 life every turn. She also isn't worth targeting when you've got 15 elfs you can regen, but I've only ever gotten the ult 2 times despite using the deck for years. One of those times I got board wiped and couldn't save them all 😢
I know you mispronounce cards to get comment engagement, well played.
Some pretty bad analysis in this video, particularly because after setting all those conditions they neglect to include commander, still probably the most commonly played format of magic even though it sees very little high level competitive play, and some of the "worst" cards listed come out very differently if looked at from a multiplayer lens. Gideon, Champion of Justice for instance doesn't have the same risk of your opponents not running creatures, since the format has more than one opponent and at least one will have a board (most will since being open in multiplayer is a great way to die, even if you want to be a spellslinger) or the selesnya walker counting your own board state in the most famously token heavy color combination in all of magic, And Goldmane being able to pump and vigilance your entire field multiple times makes him decent in those same decks. This channel really seems to favor one game type and one play style an analyses all cards in the vacuum of how good they are for, or against, that.
You are definitely incorrect about goldmane, while he was in standard there was a popular deck with tokens that played cards like spectral procession. So you would curve three into four
I dunno if Tibalt is worse then Chandra, because at least with Tibalt, you can Chaos warp him into a high-value Planeswalker instead, spending only 5 mana over two turns to get out a 7+ mana walker.
It's at least more usable then that Chandra.
I've seen Mu Yanling multiple time in duel commander, in bird/flying deck. Setting up birds and lowering my creature power was quite anoying. When youbgo first and can play mu yanling t2 and a 4/4 bird t3 is quite strong
hautli isnt held back by her abilities, shes held back by her mana cost, that 1 white mana changes her from broken to top end for gw humans
elves with hautli would be the most broken thing ever, u would turn 3/4 ultimate every game u drew her
elves run like 12-16 lands and a LOT of mana creatures, so turn 1 u drop land + mana elf, turn 2 drop 2 elves (probably no land) on 3 if u have the 4rth elf u can play her and get her to 8 loyalty on play
Mu Yanling Sky Dancer is so much fun to play. In reality, it's quite easy to get -8.
Quite easy in a very casual game where your opponent is barely interacting, I'm guessing.
I run a modern mono blue Illusions deck, which combined with Mu Yangling’s plus ability actually keeps it on the board for much longer than I initially expect. Certainly not top tier, but board control and counterspells combined with some beefy bois it’s very fun to play, not something you can say playing 4c Yorion or Murktide.
Do these walkers get stronger as it goes on? Im sorry, id take old ajani over sarkahn any day
Sarkhan's -4 alone makes him actually pretty damn good for a dragon commander deck. That's an easy killing blow if he resolves being cast.
Huatli is AMAZING for commander. Green white can poop out the most tokens on the field easily. Having a ton of token blockers, paired with a card who will be very hard to remove with how quickly she generates loyalty, is nuts.
Then we look at her -1, which is a low hit on herself and makes you a massive creature.
Her ultimate doesn't even have a high cost to her, and will give you insane card draw in a token deck. I don't see why she's on this list unless we're exclusively talking constructed (standard, modern, ect) play.
Saying tibalt can have a place in commander is laughable. He's extremely fragile and slow. For his ult to go off, you need to go 5 turns (4 to gain the loyalty and the 5th to ult) and the opponents need to have a big enough board to justify it. If your opponents have creatures worth taking, tibalt will be dead long before then ANYWAY. ESPECIALLY in commander.
Not gonna lie, one of the ways I've always wanted to win in EDH was Tibalt's ult plus Breath Of Fury. Never got it but did get a win by using his -4 once.
Topping a pro tour should exclude a card from a list like this.
Ajani has actual results.
Yeah but are there any Planeswalkers (that are both mythic and not from pre-con decks) that didn't top any pro-tour and weren't included here? And that, today, can also be considered to be worse than Ajani?
I mean, maybe there are, I dunno for sure. But you got to keep in mind that PW is an inherently strong creature-type, and so a "Worst 10" list of those is STILL inevitably going to include at least SOME cards that are/were usable. Plus, if this "Worst 10" list is based on the cards' current power level, rather than their historical performance, then Ajani's past exploits don't necessarily mean much, considering there really weren't any other options back then as far as PWs were concerned.
A green/white deck having a bunch of tokens on the board isn't "already winning," it's the default state of a green/white deck.
Tibalt is good Sideboard against those who draw darn near Infinitely, like any Blue Boi with a card that eliminates Hand Size then draws 10+ cards. Tibalt makes them regret that decision with reckless abandon!
Nissa is actually pretty powerful in an elf deck, considering the elf token spam most of them do. You can easily get 10+lp every turn from the time you play her
I was expecting 4 mana Lili to be here. Glad she's not. :)