Self-Planeswalkers

I have been on a bit of a creative Magic: The Gathering kick. Meaning I’ve been making custom cards using various sites (MTGCardSmith, MTG.Design) to further explore {market} the characters in my epic fantasy duology Journeyers and as a way to showcase my adoration for Hannibal and Jujutsu Kaisen.

One major reason for this burst: I realized how artful Magic: The Gathering cards can be, in both form and function — and how creatively satisfying the process of their careful design can be.

Some of my Journeyers-based card creations:

Now I have decided to create a trio of Planeswalker cards for *myself.*

Three variations on my person(a), in cardboard form, utilizing the whole mana pie.

This is an exercise in egomaniacal monomania ~ how strong should I be? What should be my Loyalty activated abilities? What kinds of Planeswalker – or entity – may I be, in one multiverse or another?

For the uninitiated, in Magic: The Gathering the Planeswalker is a card that emulates the player in a duel between decks; they act as a unique permanent card that can cast one special ability per turn {left +/-} using their Loyalty count {bottom right}. They can be attacked by opposing creatures just like the player and targeted with instants and sorceries too.

But Planeswalkers are well worth protecting with your own creatures and spells; the Planeswalker acts as a second consciousness in the game, both a free spell machine and a strategy dictator. Most P-Walks feature one lightly useful + ability, a reactive or more powerful – ability in the middle, and an *ultimate* ability to dump your Loyalty buildup into and potentially end the game.

In designing a Planeswalker, it is worth considering them as independent forces that should synergize within their own design AND as forces representing the typical strategies in their color schemes. They must be balanced by their mana value / Loyalty count start.

For my purposes, I am designing the cards for storytelling / artistic reasons and can discount the limits of power within the modern MTG game. (Though the game has grown in power all the time, with new abilities to combine and fresh packs to crack – and sell.)

Here is my tripulación of lightly ludicrous Planeswalker cards: Writer x God x Boy

The Writer

The Writer demands the most diverse mana and perhaps the most complex strategy. You want to use this card to take advantage of deep decks, Enter The Battlefield effects on permanents of your own, and expensive spells overall. Get to that -8 Emblem and you have just transformed your turns into a funhouse circus of efficient spells. Red-Blue-Green reflects my most creative side, where I have hope for blue skies coming soon over every horizon. Only Gojo’s shadow can be seen in the shallows.

The God

The God is the full package in Planeswalker form. Solid bulky cost at 5 pits him in the mid-range of the game, when you need instantly useful FX and survivability-enhancing impact. Shroud and creature production means The God will stick around; he will bolster your offense and defense, letting you build your army and dig for the right futurecasts. Last out to his ultimate ability and you will change the game in a stroke of the sublime. The God is the weight of my ego made fully manifest, as a jack-of-all-trades powerhouse able to win a game on his own, or dictate the strategy of an entire deck. John Martin’s daemon king is a darkling inspiration.

The Boy

The Boy! A firecracker of a card. The avatar of Red Deck Wins. As you can see in all three builds, card advantage is a major part of the design strategy; what else should a Planeswalker do but gift the player time and options? The Boy lets you draw, discard, and exile cards to cast them turn-round, proliferating at the end either way with a payment of 🔥. The 2/1 elementals with Riot can Haste in or bulk up with a counter. His ultimate blasts the field, any and all creatures and players, with the accumulation of all your spent spells. Sukuna is an artful trickster at heart, like me.

Who is the most broken? ~