I was not holding out hope for battleborn, however this makes me very interested:

Let's just get this out of the way. The art is the hottest of garbage and the red walker would never even be mentioned if not for the blue one.

I think this could be playable. The blue walker is actually kinda crazy strong. 6 mana is a lot and gives me pause, but Teferi is seeing play and he costs 5 in 2 colors so I think anything is possible at this point.

The blue walker does a lot. Draw 2 and reduce the CMC on all the relevant stuff in your hand until your next turn is is absolutely nuts and will do things like enable yawg will turns earlier than they should happen. The fact that he can net you a card (even a bad one) when played, is tutorable with the red walker, and his + ability is heavily relevant against a lot of stuff makes me think it's possible he would see play. The red walker has some utility but is mostly fodder to be brainstormed or pyrotechnics fodder I think, but you cannot really talk about her valuetown brother without mentioning her.

I would love for something this wacky to be viable in vintage, I really would.

@protoaddct The art for the entire Battlebond set is terrible.

I agree. It's like we got tired of marketing to 14 year olds so we started marketing to 7 year olds instead. A few more like this and I'll find myself running agro teletubbies with a purple splash to hardcast Barney the dinosaur.

6 Mana Planeswalkers that don't immediately end the game are not playable in this format.

@topical_island said in [BBD] The Kenrith Walkers:

I agree. It's like we got tired of marketing to 14 year olds so we started marketing to 7 year olds instead. A few more like this and I'll find myself running agro teletubbies with a purple splash to hardcast Barney the dinosaur.

FWIW I would Oath out Barney, this is vintage.

@john-cox YES. Barney would be great in Oath. We could do it Kelly style too, since we can presumably tap Orchard for purple and hardcast as well.

@topical_island I love the idea of saying the game is marketed to 7 year olds by making a reference to a 25 year old kids show. Maybe WotC isn't dumbing things down... Maybe we're just really old.

@brass-man we are old... I, I simply have no words.

@topical_island said in [BBD] The Kenrith Walkers:

@brass-man we are old... I, I simply have no words.

@brass-man said in [BBD] The Kenrith Walkers:

@topical_island I love the idea of saying the game is marketed to 7 year olds by making a reference to a 25 year old kids show. Maybe WotC isn't dumbing things down... Maybe we're just really old.

This is a reason I really like vintage. I can go play vintage with my friends and we have a lot in common, mortgages, kids, money. I've been to a couple tournaments at a bar.
If I went to the standard FNM that draws most of the players where I live I wouldn't have that comradery, I like vintage because I'm old.

@13nova said in [BBD] The Kenrith Walkers:

6 Mana Planeswalkers that don't immediately end the game are not playable in this format.

This response is pretty similar to what you said about Teferi:

@13nova said in [DOM] Teferi, Hero of Dominaria:

There's a 5 mana planeswalker that literally just wins the game in this format if it survives a turn.

This card is good in Standard. That's it.

Can we just maybe discuss what a card does and how that makes it unplayable, rather than have some stupid "rule" based on a pre-existing planeswalker in the format?

Similarly, @Protoaddct can you please provide some context on why you think this could be playable? What decks would play it?

I just feel like the way we handle the evaluation of Planeswalkers is flawed...

@chubbyrain said in [BBD] The Kenrith Walkers:

Can we just maybe discuss what a card does and how that makes it unplayable, rather than have some stupid "rule" based on a pre-existing planeswalker in the format?
Similarly, @Protoaddct can you please provide some context on why you think this could be playable? What decks would play it?
I just feel like the way we handle the evaluation of Planeswalkers is flawed...

I agree with you on evaluating these cards and how we evaluate walkers being flawed (if not most cards.)

It is hard for me to say what makes me think this is playable. it is heavily unprecidented the way these 2 cards function, and in a void seemingly powerful. Part of this is a gut reaction, and part of it is me wanting to talk it through with the community, at least those who do not summarily dismiss it as some players consistently do. We know it's a high bar to pass but thinking outloud about the lines of play:

Let's say you play the blue walker. Upon playing it you "draw" a card, which is a tutor which can get you a copy of the blue walker again should he die, which means they are both walkers are really sticky and card neutral.

You can then either use his +2 ability to 0/3 your opponents creatures, which in honesty may very well be more than enough to stop your opponents ground game completely, or his -2 which makes it so your 6 mana investment at the least netted you 2 cards.

Assuming he survives a turn, he absolutely takes over the game. Either you can keep your opponents creatures locked out for multiple turns in a row while he builds to an ultimate, similar to Tamiyo, or you can use his plus 2 yet again and set up a ridiculous turn where you can cast tendrils for BB and Yawgs will for B.

If you are willing to run multiple copies of him, you could see lines of play where you cast him and -2 him, netting you 2 cards. On your next turn if he survives, you -2 him again and kill him, and then recast another copy for 4 mana and do it again. You now have something like +5 cards just that turn and most of your stuff costs 4 less. You can cast his sister for RR if it is relevant against the board state, or Bolas for Jund mana.

Now I totally believe that this is way to controlly for Shops matchups or Dredge, but as a trump against other blue based decks this seems very strong. The red walker is really quite bad, but in a deck that uses brainstorm or red pitch or something like that it is a card all the same. I could imagine the blue walker being played without his sister as well, which is odd considering how the flavor of this is supposed to be.

The only thing that stands out with these two is that they tutor each other. But the red one is so bad that I doubt it will be relevant.

I don't think Will is thaaat bad, but imagine you're using Arena Rector to put a PW into play. Are you ever going to choose this one? I'd say MAYBE, if you're playing an Arena Rector/Storm and need your cards to cost 2 less. What I mean is, I could see this being a SB card against Shops in a Arena Rector deck. You tutor this with Rector and avoid all Sphere effects to combo out. How harder is that to do than just casting Hurkyl's Recall is the real question here I guess.

@fsecco said in [BBD] The Kenrith Walkers:

The only thing that stands out with these two is that they tutor each other. But the red one is so bad that I doubt it will be relevant.

One thing worth noting is that the red walker essentially costs 4 to cast (due to the minus 2 ability of the blue walker). This might make the opportunity value of it high enough to play both over just the blue walker.

@fsecco wow. it wasn't until your post that I realized the "Partner With X" mechanic is entirely different from the "Partner" mechanic, which they almost went out of their way to make more confusing by only putting it on legends and cards with "can be your commander" ... that seems ... unnecessarily misleading

anyway,

What I mean is, I could see this being a SB card against Shops in a Arena Rector deck. You tutor this with Rector and avoid all Sphere effects to combo out

This feels off to me. The -2 on this card is nice, but if you're tutoring out any planeswalker, it's nowhere near as nice as the abilities on something huge like Karn, Ugin, Garruk, or really any of the Nicol Bolases.

@brass-man am i mistaken or does "partner with" also include partner, in the sense that one can play the pair as your generals?

@blindtherapy you're not mistaken, it just also has an important and completely unrelated effect (I had to verify a third time after reading your post!)

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/battlebond-mechanics-2018-05-21

Apparently partner with means both

• you can use both as commanders for the same deck (sometimes. if and only if the card could already be a commander)
• when one of them enters the battlefield, you can tutor for the other one.

I don't believe this retroactively changes the rules on the old partner cards.

I never thought I'd live to see the day that they'd print a mechanic less intuitively named than bands with other

@protoaddct So you envision him in a...Storm deck? A Paradoxical deck? Unclear what other decks would be running Tendrils and Yawgmoth's Will.

This is pretty low level analysis. You are essentially reiterating what the card says and pointing out random interactions, but failing to transition that into a functional plan for a viable Vintage deck.

Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe I'm just weird in that my process for card evaluation focuses more on context, i.e. "what decks can I make with this?" or "what metagames would I want this effect in?" Then again, I have a pretty high success rate with the new cards that pique my interest, so I don't know. It just seems like very little thought goes into these discussions.

Edit:
@BlindTherapy - Yes. They can partner with the other card to be your commander. They cannot partner with other cards with partner though. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/battlebond-mechanics-2018-05-21

@chubbyrain said in [BBD] The Kenrith Walkers:

@protoaddct So you envision him in a...Storm deck? A Paradoxical deck? Unclear what other decks would be running Tendrils and Yawgmoth's Will.
This is pretty low level analysis. You are essentially reiterating what the card says and pointing out random interactions, but failing to transition that into a functional plan for a viable Vintage deck.
Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe I'm just weird in that my process for card evaluation focuses more on context, i.e. "what decks can I make with this?" or "what metagames would I want this effect in?" Then again, I have a pretty high success rate with the new cards that pique my interest, so I don't know. It just seems like very little thought goes into these discussions.

If you only look for cards that fit into existing archetypes your going to miss new archetypes all together. Perhaps the card proves to be good enough that running a singleton Tendrils and Yawgs makes sense? Maybe the deck is just toolbox.dec, similar to doomsday in its nature of running singletons and various paths to victory?

And yea, it's low level analysis. There are plenty of shells the cards could be slid into, clearly, where they can just function as finisher/synergy cards. Pick any red/blue deck that plays on the stack and is looking for a leg up in the mirror. When trying to evaluate these cards I find that we all fall into traps of just discounting them over cards like Jace and the like while failing to account for the uniqueness of those cards. This seems to be what happened with Teferi.

I would not be surprised if these cards fell flat. Honestly 99% of every card that gets printed fails the "how does this do against shops test" anyway. But it is interesting enough and novel enough that it merits discussion I think. These are certainly the strange and powerful cards that I would like to see play in the format.

@brass-man said in [BBD] The Kenrith Walkers:

@fsecco wow. it wasn't until your post that I realized the "Partner With X" mechanic is entirely different from the "Partner" mechanic, which they almost went out of their way to make more confusing by only putting it on legends and cards with "can be your commander" ... that seems ... unnecessarily misleading

anyway,

What I mean is, I could see this being a SB card against Shops in a Arena Rector deck. You tutor this with Rector and avoid all Sphere effects to combo out

This feels off to me. The -2 on this card is nice, but if you're tutoring out any planeswalker, it's nowhere near as nice as the abilities on something huge like Karn, Ugin, Garruk, or really any of the Nicol Bolases.

I don't know. Your opponent has a board full of creatures, and this is the turn you have to do something. EOT you tutor this guy out (Flash-Rector), on your turn you draw 2 and negate all his sphere effects and combo out. Neither of those PWs do anything in that scenario. And actually, in a Foundry Inspector + Ravager/Overseer turn 1 play, which of those PWs do you want to have T1? Will negates their creatures and builds your storm turn. I'm not saying he's good enough, but a SB card in a Storm-Rector deck, which is pretty narrow.

Also, why do you guys like Garruk so much? I think he's way, waaaaay worse than Ugin/Karn/Bolas.

@fsecco Weirdly enough, I think modern Workshops' aggro focus probably makes the ability pretty lackluster for stabilization once you get to six. Specifically: it's worth noting that the +1/+1 counters from Ballistae, Walkers, Ravagers, and Overseers stick around.

For a significant chunk of the creature package, this ability reads: Up to two target creatures get +0/+3 and lose all activated abilities. Not nothing, but might actually be more interesting in the more-controlling, unrestricted Lodestone meta.