Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered is a welcome return to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering’s second Innistrad block, a duo of sets that took the traditional gothic horror of the Plane and mixed in a hearty 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:helping of Lovecraftian horror for good measur꧅e. Presenting a two-act mystery for players to enjoy, the sets brought together a number of key Magic characters in an entertaining, if predictable, narrative.
Many of these characters were, of course, Planeswalkers. Six new planeswalker cards in total debuted during this block, and all six have been preserved in Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered, giving us the chan𝕴ce to evaluate them again through the lens of Magic years later.
6 🏅 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
While Tamiyo’s scientific personality was an ideal fit for the mystery plot of Shadows Over Innistrad, she was a less-than-ideal fit for the Standard of the time. Her first two abilities are strong, but they’re also ver🦩y board-dependent, with both requiring creatures♍ in play on either side in order to function properly.
Her ultimate ability is, predictably, extremely powerful but hard to reach, likely winning you the five percent of games in which ꧑you actually manage to activate it. This limited use, combined with a restrictive three-colour mana cost, ledꦫ to Tamiyo seeing limited play, and still makes her the weakest of the Shadows Over Innistrad Planeswalkers to this day.
In a very specific scenario, in a very specific white/green/blue Bant tempo deck, she canꦑ shine, but such situations are few and far between, and therefore so are this Tamiyo’s appearances in gaꦦmes of Magic.
5 Arlinn Kord/Arlinn, Embraced B꧃y The Mo꧃on
Given that you can essentially freely transform Arlinn Kord whenever𝓡 you like, you could treat this card as one planeswalker with five abilities, rather than two separate cards. While that sounds strong, what really holds Arlinn Kord back is her low star🅺ting loyalty, and her underwhelming +1 abilities in both forms.
The two +1 abilities are fairly flavourful, with Arlinn working best with individual creatures, while her Werewolf form is best when rallying 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a full pack of them.
Unfortunately, they do nothing when you don’t have 🦩an existing board state, and her other abilities, creating 2/2 Wolves and casting Lightning Bolt, essentially, are fairly low-impact as well, making her ultimate a pipe dream at best. While Arlinn can perform well in creature-focused Midrange decks, there are plenty of superior options out there.
4 🥀 Jace, Unraveler Of Secrets
It is often said that the two key things to look for in a planeswalker are the ability to protect itself, and the ability to generate card advantage. Jace, Unraveler of Secrets does both, alongside a fair mana cost to loyalty ratio t▨hat makes him difficult to take down.
His +1 gives you card selection and card draw, while his -2 bounces any creature in play. These abilities together make Jace an ideal inclusion in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:any kind of Control deck, but are also🔯 generic enough to slot into other🧸 deck types as well.
Card draw and sel𒅌ection are universally useful, while the bounce ability can also target your own creatures, letting you reuse key enters-the-battlefield effects in Midrange or Combo dec꧃ks.
The ultima💙te is impressive, but it’s best to ignore it and focus on the first two abilities here, since that’s where you’ll be getting the majority of your mileage.
3 𓄧 Sorin, Grim Nemesi𓃲s
While this incarnation of Magic’s angstiest antihero is expen✃sive at six mana, he more than makes up for it with his suite of abilities. The +1 is a kind of inverse Dark Confidant effect, letting you d💯raw a card then making your opponent take damage equal to its cost, serving as card advantage and burn damage in one.
The -X is a flexible Fireball that can hit both creatures and planeswalkers, dealing with any on-board problems and gaining you life in the processไ.
These two abilities alone can easily win you the game over a few turns, with Sorin covering his back by rem𝕴oving threats, and burning your opponent down on turns where he’s safe.
The ultimate provides you with a Vampire army in a can, but by the tim😼e you can use iꦬt you’re likely better off just using the +1 to wear down your opponent’s remaining life instead. A very solid planeswalker that’s as serious in play as the expression on his face.
2 🍌 Nahiri, The Harbinger ཧ
It’s rare that a planeswalker’s ultimate ability is the main reason to play it, but Nahiri bucks this trend in a big way. Not only can she come down relatively early, and be in a position to use her ultimate in just two turns, but she can do💃 so unconditionally due to the ‘may’ clause on her +2 effect, which lets her gain two loyalty without looting at all, if you’d prefer.
Said ultimate is among the best ever seen, letting you tutor any creature or artifact from your deck into play for﷽ a hasty strike. In the standard of the time, this was paired with Emrakul, the Promised End to devastating effect, but there are impressive targets for it in every format.
And don’t forget about her -2 ability, a rare instance of repeatab🅰le exile-based removal that plays extremely well against the prominent graveyard strategies that Innistrad hosts.
1 Lili✅ana, The Last Hope
The undisputed queen of the Shadows Over Innistrad planeswalkers, the Last Hope proudly keeps the tradition of extremely 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:powerful three mana Liliana cards alive. Coming down early in the game, she can remove small creatures with her +1 ability, and grind out value with her -2, if there are no go📖od targets to hit.
These abilities are powerful alone, but they also come packed with an ultimate that can win you the game by itself over the course of a few turns, and one that’s surprisingly easy to reach given that her +1 both removes creatures and protects her from d🎉amage.
The card saw extensive play in botဣh Standard and Modern, where it puജshed Midrange decks into prominence with its sheer power level. She may be the Last Hope, but this Liliana is certainly not the least.
