Table of Contents
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty CONSTRUCTED Articles
- The Winners and Losers of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Standard and the One Deck That May Break Standard
- Review and Preliminary Decklists of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty’s Planeswalkers
- Here Be Dragons! – Review and Decklists with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty’s Dragons
- Three New Graveyard Decks with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
- Three New Tempo Decks Made Possible by Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
- Three Awesome Standard Aggro Decks Made Competitive by Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
- Three Unique Enchantress Decks for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Standard
- Top 5 Overrated and Underrated Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Cards With Decklists and the Card That May Break Standard
- 25 New Standard Decks with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
Hello everyone! Today we have a unique opportunity that we don’t normally get during a spoiler season that I didn’t want to pass up. It’s very rare we get to see every version of a card type so early into spoiler season, but with Kamigawa, we already know what all four planeswalkers do! This is super exciting as Planeswalkers are very often some of the highest impact cards of the set so to get a chance to see them this early on is quite a treat.
With that, I’m not one to pass up an opportunity to already jump on the spoiler hype train! Here I wanted to go over the four planeswalkers, analyze how good they were, and then construct sample decks that can be used as a base when the set comes out (or at worst, a launching off point). Let’s get to it.
The Wandering Emperor
Wow. Excuse me. WOW. For how weak The Wanderer was in War of the Spark this is quite a massive upgrade. First off, this is the first planeswalker with Flash which is already quite a big deal in general. Being able to play a walker at any point is a pretty insane bonus as it makes it near impossible for the opponent to kill the walker effectively on their turn. How? You just wait until after they attack to cast it! However, just having Flash on a planeswalker isn’t enough to make it good, so how good is this?
Well, it’s probably broken. All of the abilities on this are quite excellent and all can lead to some pretty brutal blowout potential. Say you’re playing a creature deck and you attack looking to trade. They block, you flash this in, give the creature first strike, win combat and nab a 1 for 0 exchange (the inverse works of this as well). Better yet, say you have four mana up and the opponent attacks you with a good creature, flash this in, eat it, you still have a planeswalker left over.
What if they don’t attack for the turn? Well you can just flash this in on the end step and happily make a 2/2 or just cast something else entirely. Instant speed spells are always a great force of headaches and mind games and when all 3 abilities on the planeswalker lead to favorable exchanges for 4 mana, that’s a recipe for an insanely strong card.
With that in mind, realistically I think The Wandering Emperor is going to see play in every White deck, but if we’re getting specific, playing a deck that can make use of that mana instant speed is going to be the most natural home. For my money, my mind immediately went to Azorius Control.
Kamigawa Azorius Control
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Control
best of 1
8 mythic
26 rare
16 uncommon
10 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Planeswalkers (4)
Instants (19)
Artifacts (2)
Lands (20)
60 Cards
$257.62
Look at that beauty. Azorius was already on the precipice of being really good and The Wandering Emperor is one of the best possible inclusions for the deck.
Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh
Oh Tezzeret, why do all futuristic shenanigans always involve you? Tezzeret is a very interesting card with a lot of seemingly good abilities, but my brain immediately made a comparison to another recent Planeswalker.
Both are 4 mana double pip planeswalkers, both draw on their +1, both make a body to defend themselves on a -2, both have strong ultimate abilities. Are they secretly the same card?
I digress, although they are similar, Tezzeret obviously has two main differences. One, 4 loyalty over 3 is a surprisingly large jump and being artifact based is a huge difference. So let’s break down the abilities.
Tezzeret’s +1 is pretty reasonable, but far from exciting. Drawing 2 cards and discard one is really strong, but you only get that if you pitch an artifact and have to Faithless Looting otherwise. Card advantage is extremely good, but card selection is a lot less exciting. Still good, but not amazing.
The -2 is very interesting as you can permanently animate a vehicle or make an errant artifact a 4/4 somewhat calling back to the Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas days. This is a pretty strong ability and being able to do it twice in a row is definitely a boon for the card.
Finally, the ultimate ability is definitely strong but far from game winning like we’ve come to expect with planeswalker ultimates. This is definitely offset by being able to ultimate relatively quickly, but it is a bit underwhelming.
While all these effects in a vacuum seem good, I’m concerned with them contextually. So once again, let’s compare to Sorin.
Tezzeret forces you to build an artifact heavy deck to get card advantage, Sorin just pays life.
Tezzeret requires an additional card to produce a creature where Sorin does it for free. On top of that, a really common play pattern for Sorin is that it’s played, makes a token, the token gets killed, Sorin gets killed. Tezzeret makes a bigger creature, but this negative play pattern is exacerbated by it turning from a 1 to 1 to a 2 for 1 exchange.
Finally Sorin’s ultimate is very often going to be game winning where Tezzeret’s is strong, but not game winning. Again it’s easier to get to Tezzeret’s ultimate, but still.
I bring all these examples up as concerns as it seems to me that Sorin is a good deal better and it’s not even that popular! Sorin is generally a 1-2 of in black decks in Standard and Alchemy, which is a reasonable amount of play, but far from ubiquitous play! Considering Tezzeret is much more specific and makes use of a permanent type that’s hardly supported in general.
I would be ready to write this card off, however there’s one element that may turn it around: the passive. Taking 2 mana off an activated ability every turn is an extremely powerful effect that could easily be amazing with the right setup. Currently, the best payoffs for this ability that I could find are Mysterious Tome, Spare Supplies, Codie, Vociferous Codex (which wouldn’t make much sense to put in a Tezzeret deck), and Treasure Vault. If there are better and/or more payoffs for Tezzeret, then this could easily be a very powerful walker.
For how to play it right now, we have to go where the Artifacts are. As it stands, that seems to be Azorius as well.
Kamigawa Azorius Artifacts
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Artifacts
best of 1
8 mythic
19 rare
12 uncommon
21 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Artifacts (19)
Lands (23)
60 Cards
$220.44
As it stands the artifact department is a bit lacking, but I do like what’s going on here. Azorius looks like it’s going to be the Vehicles matter colors in Kamigawa so I expect as more spoilers come out, this deck will keep getting upgrade after upgrade.
Tamiyo, Compleated Sage
TAMIYO NO! When Tamiyo was spoiled, the internet was set ablaze mourning the spiritual death of a cool planeswalker. Although her fate is tragic, we get two new elements to consider with future card design. One, phyrexian mana is back which is extremely surprising considering it was initially writhe with design difficulties and Maro himself put it at an 8 on the storm scale. Two, the Compleated keyword meaning that the Phyrexians aren’t going to be satisfied with just Tamiyo.
*The Storm Scale is a scale that Maro (Mark Rosewater) uses as an indicator of how likely it is for a mechanic to return. 1 on the Storm scale is an evergreen mechanic like First Strike or Vigilance and 10 is a mechanic that will functionally never be used again like the aforementioned Storm mechanic in a Standard set*
With that out of the way, let’s analyze the turned planeswalker.
Tamiyo’s +1 is a classic Tamiyo ability ripped off the original one (Tamiyo, the Moon Sage) so we already know it’s a pretty strong ability. The minus ability is really interesting as it can functionally bring back any nonland permanent card from the graveyard. Considering Tamiyo has 5 starting loyalty, this does seem like a rather strong ability.
Finally, she has a reasonably strong ultimate and although it’s not game winning, it is very strong, will win relatively quickly unchecked, and is pretty fast to get to. Overall, I would say this is a solid planeswalker, but underwhelming at 5 mana. That is of course if Tamiyo was a 5 mana walker. At 4 mana, these abilities are much stronger and puts her into strong territory for me overall.
For the best place to use Tamiyo, being 4/5 mana is the perfect spot on the curve for an archetype that was initially pushed out by Blue: Storm the Festival.
Kamigawa Simic Storm the Festival
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Ramp
best of 1
9 mythic
27 rare
15 uncommon
9 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (19)
Instants (3)
Sorceries (4)
Artifacts (4)
Lands (22)
60 Cards
$147.12
Tamiyo is a natural fit here as a fast 4 drop to ramp into, a great Storm the Festival hit, and some much needed interaction. Furthermore, Tamiyo has great applications with the minus ability and Wrenn and Seven milling over cards which is a nice synergy as well. I’m sure there will be a few homes for Tamiyo, but this already seems like the best one.
Kaito Shizuki
Last and certainly not least, we have the first spoiled walker of Kamigawa, Kaito Shizuki. Right off the bat, Kaito is a bit of an odd ball as it’s a Dimir planeswalker, but cares a lot about creatures. It does make sense contextually as Dimir is the color of Ninjas, but definitely a bit strange versus what the color pair normally does. Nevertheless, we still have to evaluate it in both a vacuum and contextually.
First off, similar to The Wandering Emperor, Kaito also has a passive that makes it harder to deal with the turn it comes in. That said, instead of having Flash, it phases out for the first turn making it unkillable on the opponent’s turn which is certainly a nice bonus on a planeswalker.
The +1 is similar to Tezzeret’s where it can be card filtering or card advantage, but with a much lower bar of just needing to attack for the turn.
The -2 makes an unblockable 1/1 which isn’t super exciting, but works well with Ninjustsu and Kaito’s +1 ability.
Finally, the -7 doesn’t win the game by itself, but can win very quickly if left unchecked for a few turns and/or makes every creature you play a huge threat (somewhat reminscent of Domri Rade‘s ultimate ability).
Although Dimir isn’t typically a creature heavy color, with 3 reasonable abilities, a strong passive, reasonable loyalty, and only 3 mana, I would venture to say Kaito is a very strong card. 3 mana Planeswalkers are frequently underrated and the only thing holding them back generally is that they’re tough to defend, but Kaito has a built in shield for the turn. With that, any Dimir creature deck is going to easily play this, and although we don’t have an excess of Ninja’s to work off of, they aren’t the only tribe that may want to play Kaito.
Kamigawa Dimir Zombies
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Tribal
best of 1
17 mythic
23 rare
6 uncommon
14 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (21)
Sorceries (2)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (21)
60 Cards
$370.4
Kaito will probably end up working better in Ninjas than Zombies, but it does fit quite well here nevertheless. Zombies didn’t have much card advantage beyond Fell Stinger, but not having to give up a creature to get cards is definitely a pretty nice upgrade!
All in all, I would say that all the planeswalkers in this set have a lot of potential with Tezzeret being the most swingy and The Wandering Emperor just being plain nuts. I can’t wait to see what else Kamigawa has in store for us!
Thanks for reading!
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