Wednesday, September 16, 2020

CCDD 091620 - Ajani, True Companion

There's no reason this had to be Ajani-- it's a very bottom-up design, inspired by cards like Serra Avatar and Touch of the Eternal-- but I think it fits his character. And it was easy to find art for, which is nice for planeswalker card renders.

For a planeswalker, this design has very few knobs. The zero-loyalty abilities have to be zeroes; anything else would be confusing. That just leaves the starting loyalty, the plus-ability, and the mana cost. Actually, I'm not even sure the plus is negotiable. Anything besides "+X: Gain X" would distract from the concept, "+2: Gain 2" is iffy even at six mana on a planeswalker that's already a Beacon of Immortality or better, and removing the ability would leave Ajani's controller with nothing to do some turns. The other big question is whether a "pure life gain" planeswalker is a good idea at any price.

5 comments:

  1. Does removing all of the counters from Ajani in the first 0 ability destory him as a state based action? Idk if this has been updated, but the original description of planeswalkers includes the phrase "A planeswalker enters the battlefield with that many loyalty counters on it, and if it ever has zero loyalty counters, it is put into its owner's graveyard."

    Maybe you could keep the last ability and then give him some beefier plus abilities to help ramp to a hire number?

    OR You might be able to just change the phrasing and say like "exchange your life total and the number of loyalty counters on Ajani"

    I like the idea! I'm just not 100% sure how to execute it.

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    1. Pretty sure the full ability resolves before state based effects are checked, so it gets it's new counters before it would die.

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  2. I'm not sure I like this card. It really backs your opponent into a harsh corner. Let's say I drop this with 13 life. I immediately set Ajani at 13, and then my opponent is pretty much stuck in limbo until they can alpha-strike for 13. Chipping away at either my life total or Ajani's loyalty is meaningless. If they can alpha strike Ajani, they may as well Alpha strike me. If they can't it becomes a control game until I draw my win con or until they can do the 13 on a single swing. At least a card like Platinum Empyrion proactively moves the game forward for me, even if it freezes out my opponent.

    The bigger problem though is the illusion of choice in the loyalty abilities. There is ALWAYS a correct move. Planeswalkers are at their most interesting when I have the tension between the different abilities, but there's never any choice with this Ajani. The mathematical comparison between his loyalty and my life total will tell me, without fail, which of his three abilities to use.

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    Replies
    1. The intent is that the opponent has to balance attacks between you and Ajani. Hitting each for 3 is progress.

      I totally agree about the lack of choices, though-- I hadn't kept that in mind as a goal of planeswalker design.

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    2. I see that hitting each for 3 would work, but practically, how often can you get roughly equal amounts of damage by any blockers to both a player and a PW unless you are in full control mode? It's a very large obstacle for a non-ultimate ability.

      Delete