Finally, Kaya hit the vault. I had hoped that the lukewarm reception of her would have lead to a small buff to her. That was self-delusional.
Initially, she seems to be a new Ob Nixilis, which a different kill mechanism, since ObN is very limited in his use, I fail to see how Kaya will get a lot of play.
If you play Kaya, you need to pump your own GY and your opponent’s GY full of cards. Plenty of discard to force your opponent to do that, there is also a number of creatures and spells that allow you to discard from your own library. However, while you are doing this to your self and your opponent, you must be ready to remove anything the opponent’s gets on the field.
So Kaya requires a long match, which does not encounter a deck that gets large mana cascades, either by design or accident. If that succeeds, then her third ability will most likely kill of your opponent. But if you are mass discarding your opponent cards, then why not use an existing PW like Angrath who is a lot more versatile in the number of deck strategies he can run?
She is the second BW walker we have in the game. She has more consistent mana than Sorin and better deckbuilding constraints as well. Her abilities seem significantly worse.
Looking at her abilities again, I gotta agree with you that her abilities are somewhat lackluster.
On the plus side, she has a board control ability at least, so if her kill spells are eluding her too long, she can still hold her own for a while. Compared to Vraska 2, this is a plus. Also, she’s more durable than Sorin.
The bad news is that her 1st ability is about as crap as Vraska 2’s, and her ultimate requires too much setup even if it can OTK.
Having said that, I’m currently thinking of trying to make use of that ult. Imagine putting Stitcher’s Apprentice, Glowspore Shaman and Swarm Guildmage, then either or both Discovery and Notion Rain, all of which to quckly fill up your own graveyard, use her kill spells to fill up opponent’s graveyard, then ult for, I dunno, 50+ damage? Also, remember that unless misprogrammed, her ultimate exiles all graveyards, then deal damage to opponent, then move those cards back to the graveyard for a second round, and at 15 loyalty, it seems quite plausible to abuse that ult.
So, my personal final verdict: She’s a bit like 3c Sarkhan: So-and-so 1st and 2nd ability, but potential massive damage ult.
All the RNA PWs look lukewarm to me. I doubt I’ll buy any except DB2, and I’d only buy him because he’s blue. I’ll probably wait for a sale as well; in the past, dual PWs have been 35% off (422c instead of 650c).
Her first seems useless, her second and ult okay. I could see myself running her in an exile build, where her colors excel anyway.
But what do you mean with “ob is limited in his use”? I mean, he’s limited by his color, but that’s pretty much it. He offers card advantage, control and an alternative win con? How much better could abilities be?
Kayas biggest issue is that she can’t run blue and the devs don’t even seem to recognize how broken they’ve made blue.
For me, the problem is that her abilities force you into playing a very specific type of deck. Most successful PW just have baseline strong abilities regardless of your game plan.
Koth, kiora, Sorin they all just boost your mana gains and buff/fetch your creatures. As long as you run creatures you’re good to go.
Kaya demands you play some sort of mass mill/destruction deck which is just very limited in options.
That’s a pretty silly comparison. They call him “Brokhan” for a reason you know. Her first ability is basically worthless, whereas Sarkhan’s lets you draw cards (never a bad thing). Her second is okay removal; exile is good but the cost restriction is limiting, especially for creatures; it’s her best ability but it’s still not equivalent to Sarkhan’s second ability. And the biggest issue: her “potential massive damage ult” is potentially massive damage only if you’re like 20 turns into the game; on turn 2 or 3 it does basically nothing whereas Sarkhan’s is a game-ender no matter when you use it.
I primarily use Ob for creatureless objectives, since his gains and colour is to restrictive, but I acknowledge his potency in this limited venue. A dual colour PW would have many more possibilities.
Very much in agreement with you. Can be fun sometimes, but for me the part about finding new decks for a PW is part of the challenge and I don’t really see that with Kaya.
I’ve used her a few times and the one thing I actually found a bit frustrating was not able to see my opponents number of exiled/graveyard cards (don’t care what they are just the amount). You almost have to sit with pen and paper to count the cards to know if you have a kill shot.
I’ve played with her and found a couple fun things you can do with her, mainly cards that work for her that don’t really work as well for other planeswalkers, but I agree, she’s kind of lacking compared to other planeswalkers.
I have enjoyed using her in some of the events since her second ability is decent removal, and being exile is really nice, espeically if you can work it right. Destroy Diragaz using Murder on your opponent’s turn, then exile his support on your turn (but things like this really have to line up right)
That’s a very fair point! I’ll be sure to discuss with the rest of our team and see what we can do about adding a number display for an opponent’s Exile / Graveyard
I feel like the worst thing is that the only way to make effective use of her ult is to run heavy discard and if you’re going that route, Angrath is far superior.