What draws me to Magic cards most of the time is their depiction of ideas. I love Cling for Dust, for example, because when I use it, it makes me feel like I am clinging to dust; it describes the idea of an action. Starnheim Unleashed does feel like a horde of angels suddenly appearing from the sky; it depicts an event. Murderous Rider is murderous; it depicts the archetype of personified death. Planeswalkers, however, depict main characters from the official Magic: The Gathering story. They are not meant to represent ideas, and they don’t really make sense outside of Magic: The Gathering. That’s why I’ve never really warmed up to this type of card. I mean, mechanically, they bring interesting choices to the game, but I could never really muster up as much excitement for them as I did for some other cards (apart from Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor, which I love because it depicts Loki).
But in the last Standard Set released – ONE – something interesting happened to some of the main characters, a.k.a. Planeswalkers we got to know over the years. They’ve gotten compleated. That means they got infected with Phyrexian oil. Phyrexians are a people that set out to abandon the flaws of flesh and instead seek perfection in machinery (I don’t follow the story that closely, but I think that is more or less correct).
With a set that focuses on Planeswalkers and actively causes changes to them, I thought it would only make sense to look at them closer. And in fact, there is one Planeswalker in the set that feels just as right as Cling to Dust or Murderous Rider: Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting.
Basic Betrayer
Vraska is a Gorgon and has played some important roles in the past story of Magic: The Gathering. Usually, she is in black and green colors. She has been associated with destroying all sorts of permanents and poison in the form of deathtouch. In the ONE set, she loses the green and costs six mana. Although she has been only black before, losing green here is quite fitting since she has been compleated and thus lost touch with her natural side. Being compleated also means that you can pay a Phyrexian mana (2 life) rather than black to cast her. She’ll come into play with two fewer loyalty counters. That’s quite alright since you can still activate her minus-ability. In fact, she plays like a five mana Planeswalker, with the upside of more loyalty when you play her for six mana (as opposed to a six mana one with a downside when you play her earlier).
Art: Chase Stone, Design: Wizards of the Coast
More importantly than that, let’s look at her abilities. She has no plus-ability; instead, her 0 ability proliferates, which puts a counter on everything that already has a counter on it, so at the very least, it acts as a plus 1-ability. However, it also draws you a card and loses you one life. The proliferate alludes to her poisonous side, since it is very much meant to proliferate poison counters, which are pushed in ONE. Drawing a card has not much meaningful connection to her character, but it is always great to have on a Planeswalker.
Now what I really like is her minus 2-ability. It turns any creature into a treasure token. I think that depicts Gorgon-ability to turn someone into stone amazingly.
Lastly, her minus 9-ability puts so many poison counters on a player until they have exactly nine counters on them. With the tenth, they lose the game. It’s kind of sad that a minus 9 doesn’t finish the game on its own, but with her proliferate ability, she can finish the player of the next turn. That’s Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting. It’s a rather simple design. It’s slick, it feels like the baseline of Vraska’s character, with all nonsense stripped of her. I love that. But that’s also the problem. She is compleated on this card. It shouldn’t be her baseline, but she should be very much modified to be a horrific abomination that betrays her love.
Tragically Ironic
Art: Chase Stone, Design: Wizards of the Coast
Let’s turn towards a Planeswalker I am disappointed with: Nissa, Ascended Animist. Nissa is, as far as I know, one of the main characters in the MTG story. She is associated with lands and often specifically forests. She untaps them, makes them create more mana, or turns them into creatures. She is mostly green but has taken on both black and blue in past iterations. She is a guardian of nature and cares for it as much as she uses it to her advantage. In ONE she’s gotten compleated too. She’s still green, but her mana value of seven has two Phyrexian mana in it. That means she can enter the battlefield with either seven, five, or three loyalty counters on her. Her plus 1-ability lets her create a Phyrexian creature with power and toughness equal to the amount of loyalty on Nissa, which defends her, sure, but it’s not really an impressive nor interesting mechanic. Her minus 1-ability destroys an artifact or enchantment.
First of all, this ability seems horrible on a five to seven mana Planeswalker. Secondly, why should Nissa, who is now on the side of the artifact-loving Phyrexians, suddenly destroy artifacts? Now lastly, in her minus 7-ability, forests play a role again. All creatures you control gain +1/+1 for each of the forests you control and gain trample. It’s a powerful finishing move in a mono-green deck, of course, as long as you have some creatures left on the battlefield at the time you can use it. Which is at seven mana when you cast Nissa and activate this ability, killing Nissa instantly, so it might just as well have been a sorcery.
Besides the questionable power level of compleated Nissa, what I find so disappointing is the opportunity that’s been wasted. The guardian of nature has become a nature-hating Phyrexian. The changes should have been way more impactful, more ironic, and especially tragic. Being a Phyrexian is bad for every Planeswalker, of course, but for Nissa, it should have been a huge event (I heard even in the official story she gets compleated off-screen).
So, as I always do when I think something has potential that isn’t fully exploited, I try to give it a shot. Nissa, Destroyer of Worlds is my attempt at creating a compleated Nissa that is exciting both for gameplay and narratively. She’s still green, but only barely, with the only green in her mana cost being Phyrexian. Obviously, the main ability is the minus 3. Nissa destroying lands would not only be tragically ironic but also have a huge impact on the game. Having treasures instead of lands changes resource management drastically. For the player who cast Nissa, it means they can play something to protect her in the same turn. For the opponent, it means that he has one turn left with the resources he had before. Every treasure spent means fewer resources for the next turn. If seven mana was spent to play play Nissa you could activate the minus 3-ability twice in a row, but you’ll lose Nissa then.
The plus two is a powerful draw effect, but gives you the choice to spend your treasures either for mana or for more cards.
Lastly, the minus 8-ability is a reference to other Nissas turning lands into creatures. Now the treasures, if you have any left, become weaker creatures but with poison which would be in line with the Set.
Art: Chase Stone, Design: Me
Nissa, Destroyer of Worlds, would be a weird card. But that makes her only fit for the Phyrexian world. I think it would be a powerful card, which I’d like it to be because the change from nature loving to nature hating Nissa should be impactful in the story and because of that impactful in the game. It would be a more exciting experience to play her with strategically challenging but also fun choices, and as already said, it would narratively point out the tragic irony of the fate of a compleated Nissa.
The Artwork of the titleimage stems from Chase Stone and is owned by Wizards of the Coast.