So if a card that lets you play on additional land is copied, you can now play two additional lands. If one or two lands were milled, discard Dakmor Salvage as the Gitrog trigger goes on the stack and repeat the first two steps. This will put another Gitrog trigger on the stack, letting you save the one(s) from the milled lands for when you’re ready to draw your deck. “Nahiri, the Lithomancer” is particularly interesting for her ability to create and manipulate equipment, making for a deck that’s heavy on artifacts and creature enhancement.
Unlike other Magic The Gathering formats, Commander only allows you to have 99 cards in your deck – no less, no more. For those of you that may be worried about how the “Legend Rule” might any players trying to play a large amount of Planeswalker in their deck, no need to worry. New Planeswalker cards are released in almost every new MTG standard set, so the number of Planeswalkers you can add to your deck grows constantly. There are multiple tutors in the deck for it such as Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map, and Archdruid’s Charm.
Ray – MTGA Central
If Sivitri’s a threat, your opponents will just pay life to kill it, and if they’re not able to deal with it, the +1 doesn’t do anything on your way to the other abilities. Crux of Fate as an ultimate is cool and all, but Crux isn’t out there auto-winning games or anything. That means this ends up as an expensive sorcery-speed Sarkhan’s Triumph more often than not, albeit one you could use multiple times throughout the course of a game. The transforming planeswalkers from Magic Origins are technically legendary creatures in the command zone, but each one has the ability to become a planeswalker, so we’ll add them to the list. Would you have believed that there are about 300 different planeswalker cards?
Why can’t planeswalkers be commanders?
It’s also not a bad choice to tutor directly on the battlefield, as you can sacrifice it to The Gitrog Monster to get your loops going. The Gitrog Monster is primarily a combo deck, with a secondary landfall theme as a backup. You don’t want to go all-in on the combo, as sometimes it can get cut off if Dakmor Salvage ever gets exiled. The maintenance cost for The Gitrog Monster is mandatory, but if you really need your lands, you can opt to sacrifice The Gitrog Monster instead of a land. Alongside its new mechanic, Planeswalker cards, previously considered non-Legendary, were given an upgrade. All Planeswalker cards printed in Dominaria and any future sets are Legendary permanents.
This is excellent commander in Golgari decks that love to have creatures in the graveyard to target with their various reanimation spells. You can learn about great starter products in the best starter decks article, and planeswalker decks are great and some of them come with free MTGA codes). If you’re not familiar with them, the Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage planeswalker deck and Garruk, Savage Herald Planeswalker Deck are ready-to-play 60-card decks for beginning players. They offer a fun and simple way to get better acquainted with the game using a deck that’s well-balanced against other planeswalker decks from the same set. In the Commander format, a planeswalker can serve as a commander if it specifically states on the card that it can be used as a commander. Not all planeswalkers have this designation, so it’s important to check if the specific planeswalker card you want to use has the commander option.
Exceptions and Special Sets
Some planeswalkers can become creatures like Gideon of the Trials or Sarkhan the Masterless, but this is the exception, not the mtg card rule. Even though you can’t have two planeswalkers with the same name in play, you can have more than one of the same type of planeswalker in play as long as they have different names. Note that you and your opponent can both have Nissa, Steward of Elements in play, but you and your opponent cannot have more than one of them on your respective sides of the battlefield. There can be more than one that exists on the battlefield if they’re controlled by different players. If you were to steal your opponent’s Nissa, you would again have to pick which one to keep and the other would go to the graveyard. This move would actually make some kind of sense since you’re taking away their planeswalker and, potentially, boosting your Nissa’s loyalty.
Estrid, the Masked requires a very specific deck to work, and it’s not that powerful even then. Maybe I lack the deckbuilding imagination to make a great deck with it as the commander, or maybe I just don’t like auras all that much. Nissa, Vastwood Seer is an excellent card, but an underpowered commander. It’s a great addition to the 99 of almost any green deck, guaranteeing your next land drop and building towards its own transform condition. Nissa, Sage Animist is adequately described as “okay,” but the +1 being a functional Coiling Oracle trigger each turn is nice card advantage, and sometimes ramp. You can have a maximum of four planeswalkers with the same card name in your deck, just like any other MTG card.
You can only activate the loyalty abilities of planeswalkers as a sorcery. This means you can only activate it on your turn and, unless you have something like The Chain Veil or Teferi, Temporal Archmage’s emblem in play, you can only activate one ability per turn. You can, however, use a loyalty ability the turn your planeswalker enters the battlefield. All planeswalkers that can become a creature—think Gideon of the Trials—have summoning sickness the turn they enter the battlefield like any normal creature, meaning they can’t attack that turn. Unless you have a card that gives creatures haste, like Fires of Yavimaya, of course.
This could mean having creatures with “defender” or spells that can remove threats. This approach ensures that the addition of planeswalker commanders remains a special and exciting aspect of the game, without disrupting the overall balance. It also encourages players to explore different strategies and deck themes, keeping the gameplay fresh and engaging.
As you can see from the list above you can fit a lot of Planeswalkers into a single Magic deck.
The ability for a planeswalker to be a commander is a special exception, not a general rule. Tasha’s concept is certainly fun and powerful, especially in Dimir where this sort of steal your stuff, play it later strategy is the norm. Subract three loyalty to cast one of the spells when she starts with four and her other ability is a +1 is sort of weak. I’d rather this either allow you to cast multiple spells, or cost less to activate.
Yes, you are only prohibited from having two planeswalkers with the exact same name. You can have a Garruk, Unleashed, and a Garruk, Cursed Huntsman out at the same time. “Urza, Lord High Artificer” from Modern Horizons is another standout. Urza’s versatility in artifact manipulation and creation of mana makes him a powerhouse in any commander game. WotC used to call their 100-card format, Historic Brawl (now just Brawl). Stick with digital play and you can find the 60-card Standard Brawl format on Arena.