Pattern Recognition #104 - the Vorthos of the Planeswalker

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berryjon

28 March 2019

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Hello everyone! Welcome back to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.net's longest running article series about the bric and brac of Magic: The Gathering, card design, game history and theory as well as being my own personal soap box for when I want to go on and on about things that interest me. Who am I? Well, I am berryjon, self professed Old Fogey and yes, I've been playing this game for longer than some of you have been alive. I've earned that title.

Today, I'm talking about Planeswalkers.

Now, I've also discussed some in specific in the past, going over some of the Gatewatch members, and their ups and downs. But today, with the release of War of the Spark on the immediate horizon, I want to talk about them in the general. I want to talk about the Vorthos of the Planeswalker.

Now, Planeswalkers have been in the game since pretty much the beginning, and it's one of the basic conceits to the game that makes Magic, well, Magic. After all, you are a Planeswalker, but what does that actually mean?

Let me step back here and try to explain what a Planeswalker is within the context of the game itself first.

Every sentient creature is born with or without what is called "the Spark" - the same "Spark" that is referred to in the title of the next set after this article is going to be published. This Spark is not a physical thing, as the futule search for it was what helped drive Yawgmoth to madness and eventually help shaped his ideal of Phyrexia.

Rather, to the best of my understanding, the Spark is a small connection to the Blind Eternities.

Now, the Blind Eternities are part of the underlying construction of Magic' Multiverse - specifically, they are the non-space between the Planes, a place of such utter chaos that attempting to enter them without protection is pretty much instant death. In fact, at least one character in the game has been killed by doing just that. They were Planeswalked into the Blind Eternities, and left there. Their stay was short and very unpleasant.

Now, these are also called the Blind Eternities because, well, for the most part, you are blind in them. Planeswalkers are naturally drawn toward Planes, much like gravity wells, but for anyone else, they have no sense of which way is which, let alone being able to backtrack to their home.

Which is why the position of Hanna, Ship's Navigator was so important to the Skyship Weatherlight, Her responsibility was in figuring out how to go from place to place through the Blind Eternities.

But I digress.

Just having a Spark is not sufficient to become a Planeswalker, and without knowing who has the Spark, there is no way to try and figure out anything more about it. But for a person with a Spark to become a Planeswalker, they have to undergo an event of extreme stress - up and including dying for their Spark to awaken. For example, Urza's Ruinous Blast, which I described as an explosion so powerful it literally shook Dominaria like a bell, with Urza standing at the epicenter. That was when he became a Planeswalker.

Bo Levar, a ship's captain who was offshore with a load of passengers, and quite some distance away, also became a Planeswalker in the same event. He's also the source of one of my favourite pieces of Magic flavor ever printed on a card - Gainsay. So no, you don't have to be someone special to become a Planeswalker, and having a Spark gives you no special advantage before becoming a 'Walker.

However, it is not in great moments of tragedy that one can ascend to becoming a Planeswalker. Narset, Enlightened Master for example, was unable to have her Spark activate while in the Khans Timeline, but in the Dragons Timeline, under the tutelage of Dragonlord Ojutai, she was able to achieve a degree of enlightenment, becoming Narset Transcendent. No trauma here, just self reflection and improvement.

Also, in a slightly more awesome way - if only because we get to see it - Samut, Voice of Dissent awakens her Spark, not out of the tragedy that befell Amonkhet at the hands of Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver, but rather the sheer joy that came from the sincere gratitude of her god, Hazoret the Fervent showed her, allowing her to become Samut, the Tested.

I really hope Samut survives War of the Spark. She deserves a chance to see Bolas fall, and she's a good character too.

But its after a persons Spark ignites that the differences become apparent. Now, here I have to distinguish between the OLD Planeswalkers, those from before Time Spiral, and NEW Planeswalkers, those who survived the events in that book.

Old Planeswalkers, sometimes called OldWalkers in more causal conversation, all have a few things in common. The first is that they all become immortal shapechanges. That is, because of their new nature, they are creatures more of mind than of body. Urza himself survived as just a head for a while, pointing out to Gerrard that as long as he could think, he had lost nothing. That's why he's Urza, Academy Headmaster. Eh! Eh! Get it?

Oh come on, the joke hasn't worn that thin already now, has it?

In addition, Old Planeswalkers could easily enter and find their way around the Blind Eternities, going to new Planes with relatively little difficulty. This helped drive the plot for a bit, as some people, such as Yawgmoth, were jealous of this and sought to take it for themselves.

But lastly and most importantly, Old Planeswalkers had Mana.

Yes, you read that right. You know how much you struggle with being mana screwed or mana flooded? Well, for Planeswalkers, that was no longer the case as they, in essence, had a permanent Omniscience effect in play, meaning that they could go straight for their end-game, world breaking spells from the get go. The only limit to this was a Planeswalker's personal color preference, and which spells they knew. To paraphrase the eternally enjoyable Robin Williams' role as the Genie:

"PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER! Itty-bitty Spellbook"

In addition, Sparks can not be created, or artificially made in any way. The only known person to have a Spark, and wasn't born with it is Karn, Scion of Urza, who had Urza's Spark implanted in him as part of the Legacy Weapon, and he came into a replacement Spark for that one later.

For the record, there are very few Old Walkers that were good with all five colours. Urza was mostly known for his affinity, while Serra the Benevolent was so mono-, she defined what it meant to be for the longest time. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is (in)famous for his affinity, given that combination's status as the one that most trends to villainy.

Now, just because an Old Walker had a preference or an affinity for a certain colour or combination, didn't mean that they couldn't use other colours. For example, with the revelation of what Bolas did to Amonkhet in the days of the Mending, Mark Rosewater, on his blog, confirmed that while he was , he was still capable of using and . They just weren't as natural to him, and took a bit more effort.

And because of this, it was hard to write stories about Planeswalkers. They could simply overpower anything other than another Planeswalker, and a real fight between the two would wreck the Plane they were on in short order.

Hence the idea of the Planeswalker's Duel. And this is what Magic: The Gathering was originally designed to simulate. When two Walkers were fighting over something, they would agree to a duel, and set the rules ahead of time. After all, no one wanted their prize to be destroyed.

So, as it was, each player became a Planeswalker in a duel. They each started with no immediate resources, and had to gather mana from the local plane, rather than drawing on the Blind Eternities or other Planes. Thus, the Planeswalkers had to fight more tactically, rather than simply trying to overpower each other. And once a winner was established by the rules of the duel (the 20 life loss, or lack of a Library initially), then that Planeswalker could have their prize and the loser would be allowed to leave, no harm, no foul.

Or course, this is just an abstraction of the vast array of spells, abilities and even the later Planechase expansions that just added to the whole thing.

However, when this much power is located in one place, the terrain doesn't always hold up well. From the very first Planeswalker Duel on Dominaria between Nicol Bolas and an unidentified "leviathan", to the last between - again - Nicol Bolas and Leshrac, these duels scarred the underpinnings of reality each time they occurred simply because of the nature of the combatants.

And it was this constant scarring that was one of the primary factors that led to the Mending.

The infinite power of the Planeswalker, simply by existing, let alone the powers they could bring to bear, needed to be repaired, or else pretty much the whole of the Multiverse would be destroyed in a cataclysmic chain reaction that would take out pretty much everything and everyone.

So, under the auspices of Teferi, Temporal Archmage, a small group began to "Mend" the worst of the damage. However they soon discovered that the problem went deeper. The mere act of becoming a Planeswalker caused these rips in the fabric of reality and they were tied to the power of the Planeswalker themselves.

You see, just as an Old Walker was an infinite source of power, so too were these rift an infinite maw, each one slowly consuming what was around them. Now, they could be plugged with sufficient effort, but the only safe way to 'fix' the worse of the Rifts was to fill an Infinite Hole with Infinite Power.

The Planeswalkers had to start giving up their Sparks if they wanted to survive. Some, like Teferi, were willing but reluctant. Others, like Jeska, Warrior Adept, tried to get around it by using two Planeswalkers on a single Rift so that both would survive the process (in this case, the power of Radha, Heir to Keld that had yet to awaken), and while she was successful for a time, it wasn't a proper solution, and both lost their Sparks. Interestingly, Nicol Bolas helped in his own way, feeding Leshrac to the Talon Gates, where he himself first became god-like, keeping his Spark while fixing his problem.

And so it went, The Mending of Dominaria happened. Enough major rifts had been fixed that the lesser rifts could heal naturally, and with them, the threat to the Multiverse caused by the power of the Planeswalkers.

Yet the source of the problem, the Planeswalkers themselves, remained. So they too were Mended.

With the Mending, Planeswalkers lost their innate connection to the Blind Eternities. They were no longer walking holes in reality. They could no longer draw upon infinite reserves of mana, and they were still as they were before the Mending - not creatures of mind and energy, but of flesh and soul.

What they did have was the ability to travel the Planes, but in a much reduced state, and that was it. They were still (mostly) mages with their own skills, the old Spellshaper creature class, and they carried those abilities with them when they became Planeswalkers. This made them a bit more accessible as characters to the players and to finally do what people had been wanting for ages - print them as cards.

New Planeswalkers, starting from Venser, Shaper Savant becoming Venser, the Sojourner as well as old Planeswalkers who survived the Mending, could now be seen in player's decks.

While Old Walker were too powerful to represent in the game, New Walkers were flavored not as mighty creatures just like you, but rather as individuals with their own desires. Souped up Legenday Creatures, if you will. They were more relevant to the identity of the player (except for Jace, because Fck Jace), and so they could be made more integral to the game and its plot.

That being said, New Walkers are also more limited than Old Walkers. They tend to stay in their preferred colors, only rarely changing. Much like real players!

But the important part is that when you summon a Planeswalker, they aren't actually helping you to the fullest extent of their abilities. Rather, they are only bringing part of their metaphorical deck to the table to help you out for a little while. Their Loyalty is just a measure of how much they will put up with you before they leave with their cards.

I like the idea, the concept of having a second or third or fourth Planeswalker intruding on ones' duel. the implementation has been spotty though, but I think, on the whole, Wizards has done an admirable job of simulating what it means to have someone with their own deck coming by and helping you out for a little bit.

I'm interested in seeing what War of the Spark will do with its glut of 'Walkers, what Bolas' actual plan is, and who will make it through - aside from the obvious ones who are already known to show up in the future.

Join me next time, when I talk about something. I haven't decided yet. Perhaps you'll all have a suggestion?

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!