I had this crazy notion about playing with Planeswalkers before you purchase them. Allowing players a chance to get a feel for the Planeswalker with their mana gains and abilities.
To this end, I propose the return and redesign of the Planeswalker Arena.
Hear me out. What if, each week, we have a PvP Event where the Planeswalkers are the upcoming Vault Planeswalkers. Everyone can join this event and are not required to own the Planeswalkers to do so. You get full access to running a custom deck or a pre-set deck just as you would if you owned the Planeswalker. Set the rewards to just runes and crystals (that can then be put towards purchasing and leveling said Planeswalkers).
They get to experience how the Planeswalker plays and feels during this event. If they like the Planeswalker, than they can purchase it the following week in the vault. This would also be an excellent way to showcase upcoming Planeswalkers that get released with new expansions. In that case, the players could get a really good feel for the Planeswalker that they can purchase with real money if they like what they’re seeing.
I feel like this would really incentivize people to purchase the Planeswalkers even more than just “Oh, I could use that color combination” or “I wonder if their abilities will help with this certain deck”.
This recent Hour of Devastation event is yet another reminder that this event could have garnered more interest I feel if players hadn’t been required to purchase Nicol Bolas before/during the event in order to play his node.
Likewise, the previous Hour of Devastation events featuring Samut and Elspeth would have been been more favorable to players as well if this were the case, both new and old.
There is ample opportunity to make the Planeswalker Arena more related to each set with each of that new sets Planeswalkers.
As a player ,I like this. This would be a terrible move for the devs ,though . A lot of us hated the events where you were forced to buy a pw. I probably have 10 pws that I only got for those events. If I didn’t have to buy them, I probably wouldn’t. While it’s good for me not being compelled to buy janky pws, encouraging spending of in game currency is good for business. Also you could actually still make personal progression without the required pw. I did that twice during my ‘I hate hibernum’ phase.
Oktagon has yet to make an event requiring a Planeswalker they made (though Bolas could kind of count), so I think there’s a decent chance they’ll at least consider this idea.
If they ran those events regularly, tho, rather than just once and forgotten about 'em, then perhaps that purchase of a planeswalker wouldn’t have been such a waste?
People hated the event. Broken carriage meta was in full swing and the pre-built forced Saheeli deck had zero answers to it. It was long, stressful (over 3 days in length before the longer 8 hour refreshes), and the reward was Saheeli Rai herself months before her initial sale for a small number of top scorers.
I don’t remember people hating the deck. I remember we weren’t thrilled with her deck (12 mostly meh cards with no answers to carriage), and I remember a lot of crashes, but I don’t remember anyone disliking the concept.
With the more stable platform nowadays it should be pretty easy to do a similar type event now with new walkers, and I bet it would be well received as well.
This is why I suggested in this iteration that the deck be customizable with your own collection of cards. So you can actually get a real feel for how the Planeswalker operates decks that you personally would want to run with it.
I do. That deck was horrible, filled with anti-synergy, a high mana curve and ridiculous secondary objectives.
Here’s a decklist whch I found in a previous thread. It has 11 cards, and I’m not sure if that is accurate or if there is an error.
Mirrorpool Shivan Reef Thopter Spy Network Alhammarret’s Archive Hangarback Walker Chief of the Foundry Pia and Karan Nalaar Brutal Expulsion Chandra’s Ignition (I think) Foundry of the Consuls Exert Influence
The secondary objectives were something like “cast 8 or more supports”, when most of the supports cost 12 or more mana. Mirrorpool + Thopter Spy Network is a non-bo. The first Thopter to come down gets reinforced, and then Mirrorpool is destroyed. If that doesn’t kill it, Pia and Kiran Naalar will with their activated ability. Chandra’s Ignition does absolutely nothing against Runaway Carriage, which was breaking the format. Alhammarret’s Archive’s card draw isn’t helpful when all of your other cards cost a billion mana, and its lifegain ability does nothing when there is no lifegain in the deck.
Exert Influence does nothing if you have 3 creatures on board, and since nearly every card spawns Thopter tokens, you’re almost never going to have a free creature slot. Foundry of the Consuls is silly to pay 11 mana for, when Saheeli’s first ability can do it for free.
Additionally, it was a coalition event, and most players in the competitive coalitions already won Saheeli the first go around. Then they repeated the event and people were in a pickle. Do you leave your top tier coalition so that some other person has a chance at the prize? Do you sandbag it, possibly to the detriment of other members of your coalition who don’t have a Saheeli? And why do you even want a Saheeli when every deck you face is Gideon I making indestructible hexproof flying Runaway Carriages?
Yeah, the deck was absolutely terrible. It was like a complete novice looked at the most expensive cards in his collection and threw them all together and figured they’d work.
I do like the idea of people being able to preview a planeswalker, though. It seems like it’d be a smart move; playing with something and having fun with it would probably tempt more people to open their wallets as opposed to purchasing something blind.
