Extremely Way Too Early WAR Spoilers

Chester Bennington definitely would have been a Jund player.

So I am pumped as hell for this set. Planeswalkers are midrange gold.

So of course I'm a big Bitterblossom fan, and this card is the first thing I gravitate towards. Lemme give y'all a little history lesson.

The original 5 Planeswalkers were pretty good. Garruk Wildspeaker was really good right out of the gates, Ajani Goldmane was solid once Spectral Procession was printed. The thing about them was that the format was pretty hostile towards them. Time Spiral had all of these tempo cards like cheap counterspells, Tarmogoyf, Ancestral Vision, good red cards. And Lorwyn was a tribal-themed set, which of course leads to really linear decks that are pretty obvious builds. You've gotta have a really good reason to put a planeswalker in your Goblin deck instead of a different Goblin. The real nail in the coffin was Bitterblossom, which was was impossible to interact with and provided a once-per-turn value add at a cheaper and less vulnerable card type than Planeswalkers, plus the tokens were super good at pressuring opposing Planeswalkers.

What happened when people started putting Jace Beleren in Faeries, though, is that we learned how good Bitterblossom was at blocking and making your planeswalkers better. All of a sudden you had two card advantage engines that, while small, cost 0 mana per turn and worked really well in concert with each other. The best thing to with Planeswalkers is to just cast one every turn and snowball them together, but that's only possible if you can keep them alive. What's great about Bitterblossom is that it basically is a planeswalker, but also plays great defense to keep your bigger Planeswalkers alive. Also, Bitterblossom only costs two mana, which is the other thing wrong with the Planeswalker into Planeswalker plan: they all cost four and five mana.

We can talk about the reasons why Dreadhorde Invasion is worse than Bitterblossom, but as some pros point out when cards that are similar to classic cards are printed, "Bitterblossom isn't legal, so it's not worth comparing this card to it." But just to point out some differences, losing flying is a huge deal. That said, you actually get to attack with the extra counter you put on the creature in your upkeep. Bitterblossom, you would attack with some tokens but one would have summoning sickness, but with Dreadhorde you get to attack for that extra point of damage. That makes it better in multiples, since the difference between attacking for 3 then 5 then 7 is huge compared to attacking for 1 then 3 then 5. Also, and this is a big deal, is that sometimes you would lose to your life total even though Bitterblossom had totally taken over the game, while Dreadhorde has a safety valve for that with the lifelink ability. It won't come up often, but it's there.

The other thing that's interesting about this card vs Bitterblossom is just how awful Bitterblossom would have been if Goblin Chainwhirler was in the format (Well, that's not true, Bitterblossom still would have been the best card. They printed Volcanic Fallout, Zealous Persecution, and Great Sable Stag and couldn't stop it.). Dreadhorde actually plays around Chainwhirler a little bit. And while Bitterblossom had great Faerie synergies...

I'm pretty stoked for this as a sideboard card. I've finally started adding Cry of the Carnarium to my Jund sideboard to deal with Red and White and Selesnya, and this card leaves a creature in its wake and doesn't blow up your zombie tokens. And, you know, Wraths and blockers are great for keeping your Planeswalkers alive. I'm really excited about this one as well.

For a while I've kind of hoped that we had a good ramp spell, something like Farseek or Sylvan Caryatid that was good in the past. Llanowar Elves doesn't really do it, since it adds green and is nigh-uncastable on turn one. Now we have that option available to us, the question will now be if we want it or not. We run headlong into Chainwhirler with this card, but it can't really be interacted with outside of that, and unlike Sylvan Caryatid it can actually attack a Planeswalker if need be. And, you know, another thing that's good with Planeswalkers is casting them a turn early. Vraska Golgari Queen or Karn, Scion of Urza both seem great on turn 3, and Angrath or Vivien on turn 4 seems awesome too. plus the Druid does a little bit of defensive work in a pinch.

As for actual Planeswalkers from the set, this is kind of the only one that's really sparked my interest. The problem is two-fold: do you want a 6 mana planeswalker in your deck, and is it better than Vraska Relic Seeker.

Vraska has some problems associated with it as well. Sometimes it sucks that it's your top end and then on the next turn you don't have anything good to cast and have to hope Vraska gets you there. Liliana has a nice little card advantage engine built in, and notice that it doesn't say non-token creatures for the extra Dreadhorde value. Vraska also gets trumped by Carnage Tyrant, while Liliana's -4 takes care of implacable death lizards quite nicely. You probably just want to make sure you don't play your own Carny Boiz in the same deck as Liliana, but she's got great synergy with Rekindling Phoenix.

Six mana is a lot, though, so who knows. I think it'll definitely see play, but whether it's good enough for our awesome unbeatable Jund Planeswalkers deck is yet to be decided.

There have been some other Planeswalkers leaked, but the pictures of them suck and none of them in the Jund colors are really that good. However, while I was writing this post, this beautiful card was spoiled: 

First thing I thought of was actually not Standard, but Modern. In Modern, we already play at least 4 Liliana planeswalkers, and this would make a pretty good cast for adding in a couple more. This deals nicely with Thing in the Ice and opposing Death's Shadows and Tarmogoyfs and whatnots. Making them pitch an extra card in the process is amazing when you can get it off. It doesn't even target so it gets around Leyline of Sanctity out of the Bogles decks. EAT SHIT SLIPPERY BOGLE!!!!!!! Also, who's discarding cards now, Reality Smasher? And I can't wait until someone Through the Breaches and Emrakul at me and we toast 'em. I am PUMPED.

I'll definitely be playing a couple of these in Modern Jund going forward for the forseeable future, and possibly some Liliana the Last Hope to help facilitate it. I love it. Absolutely love it.

UPDATE:

Angrath's Anger (?) -  Sorcery RB - Choose one, Target player sacrifices an artifact, Target player sacrifices a creature, Target player sacrifices a Planeswalker.

Looks great. It's clearly less powerful than Bedevil for a lot of reasons, but being cheaper and not requiring double black is a pretty big deal.

Sacrifice effects are usually pretty bad when your opponent has something like Llanowar Elves laying around and you want to hit their big baddie, but if the card you want to hit is a Planeswalker, you're in the clear. Is that enough to warrant this over Bedevil? Maybe it's not an either/or situation, but a 3/3 split? It's tough to have all your removal be the expensive and versatile stuff. Also, sacrifice effects are good for the same reasons Liliana's -4 and Liliana's Triumph are good: Carnage Tyrant, Dive Down. All good stuff here. Removal that's not dead against Esper (like Bedevil and Vraska's Contempt) is great, but cheap removal that's not dead against Esper and lets you keep pace with the aggro decks is awesome. Plus, if we're going to play a bunch of Planeswalkers, the more answers to The Immortal Sun we have, the better.