Ajani: I've always liked Ajani, especially starting during Alara block and getting a promo Ajani Vengeant as one of my first ever walkers. I used to run more Ajanis, but only One has stood the test of time.
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Ajani Steadfast - This is one of my all time favorite planeswalker cards. He doesn't outright win the game like some of the others, he just allows all of my other walkers an incredible amount of survivability, letting me relax and set up for some goofy or game winning play.
+1: Makes one of you're tokens or dudes into a mini atraxa for a turn, this helps restore some of the life lost from you're fetches and shocks while leaving whatever you target up for defense on your opponents turns
-2: Much better later on in the game, once you've got out a bunch of walkers and a couple of creatures to hit. This grants your walkers a little extra reach towards their impactful ults or -X's, which often can turn the tide of a game. This is impacted by Pir and Doubling Season (DS)
-7: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. This emblem is incredibly powerful. As soon as its out, folks stop even trying to kill your walkers and focus on whittling your life total down, however the lifelink on Atraxa and granted by other walkers makes that strategy very difficult. The pressure this takes off of your walkers allows you to safely prepare some win condition ults.
Ashiok: I've always wanted to run an Ashiok card ever since they were revealed during the Theros storyline, but sadly it wasn't until War of the Spark was a playable Ashiok card printed. Thank goodness that its not only playable but incredibly powerful.
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Ashiok, Dream Render - I can see this seeing play all over EDH and even sideboards in other 60-card formats. Hybrid mana makes Ashiok very easy to cast and the now-increased amount of proliferate in the deck means that it's unlikely for them run out of loyalty.
Passive Ability: This turns off fetches, tutors, and ramp. What more could you ever ask for?
-1: What a silly question: Exiling your opponents graveyards. With these two massively powerful effects on a single card Ashiok can absorb huge amounts of pressure, helping make room for other things I should be doing. If instead, your opponents choose not to pressure Ashiok, they're playing handicapped by her abilities.
Elspeth: I love Elspeth more than any other walker and you can quote me on that. She was first introduced in my first set, Shard of Alara, and was the first planeswalker card I ever saw opened from a booster pack. It happened at a draft at an LGS that no longer exists and everyone was trying to figure out how they worked (Thank goodness for tooltip cards am I right)
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Elspeth, Knight-Errant - The OG. She provides protection, a little offense, and an ult that leaves your opponents jumping through hoops to work around. There's never been a doubt in my mind about this inclusion.
+1: Making a 1/1 seems pretty mediocre at first, but its at the heart of making superfriends work. The majority of threats a planeswalker faces are gonna be on the ground, esp given Atraxa's superiority in the air, so having a good number of tiny chump blockers is going to drastically increase the survivability of all of your planeswalkers, even those not cast yet.
+1: Sometimes you just want to make Atraxa an 8/8 and steal some life. That's okay. You can also stack this with some other walker buffs and throw a seriously dangerous token at somebodies face forcing out blocks or taking out a chunk of life. I only wish, like some newer walkers, this ability lasted until your next turn.
-8: Can be immediately activated with DS but she will die. Making your non-walker permanents indestructible is really, really strong. People only run so much exile in any given commander deck and eventually the number of untouchable threats is going to pile up and overwhelm your opponents. Honestly its usually worth popping this ult when it comes up, even if you lose Elspeth in the process.
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Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Universally acknowledged as one of the best planeswlakers for commander ever printed, she is an automatic include for her raw power and versatility.
+1: Three 1/1s every turn is incredible. The need for blockers in this deck is so dire, having something like this filling the board can easily win the game almost by itself.
-3: Having the ability to wipe away all large creatures as soon as she enters the battlefield is incredibly attractive, especially for this deck and its critical lack of large-bodied threats.
-7: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. An okay emblem is just icing on an already delicous card. This is one of the very few emblems that won't win you the game in this deck.
Garruk: I love and have always loved Garruk. His entire arc is a beautiful tragedy ending in the birth of the most dangerous planeswalker hunter ever. When I first built the deck I ran three Garruks, however, as in the story, only the monster remains.
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Garruk, Apex Predator - Everyone knows how powerful four ability walkers can be. The amount of variety that having that many abilities provides is truely something to be feared. Apex Predator also has the advantage of his high mana cost allowing all four of his abilities to be incredible.
+1: As the planeswalker hunter, killing a walker and getting stronger as his first ability is both flavorful and valuable. Walkers can be tough to remove, especially if protected by creatures or countermagic, but Garruk just dodges all of that with targeted destroy.
+1: Tokens are crucial. 3/3's with deathtouch are just dope.
-3: This is very strong creature removal, which is clutch because this deck is a smidge removal light. Small bits of incidental lifegain like this helps keep the deck running smoothly.
-8: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. This is largely a pile on ultimate to help close out a game in the end stretch, but if you put it on someone early game, you almost garuntee their quick death.
Jace: Personally, I hate Jace. He was always my least favorite planeswalker, which was largely due to his douchey flavor texts around M10 and the Jace v Chandra duel decks, but also because he encapsulates blue mana very well, and its my least favorite color in Magic.
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Jace, Unraveler of Secrets: As the only Jace in this deck I feel like I need to justify his presence over the highly overrated JtMS, but truthfully JtMS isn't that good in EDH. This guy actually does things I need while getting himself to a point where he wins me the game instead of instantly eating removal like MS would.
+1: If this was his only ability I might still play him. Its such a small innocent ability folks tend to ignore it, not killing him but keeping him from ulting, and that's so fine.
-2: Bouncing something is sometimes good, but usually not. Its very helpful for removing Marit Lage, though, which my playgroup sees a lot of.
-8: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. This ability got Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
banned, and for good reason. Trying to fight back against this is a painful struggle that leads to wasted resources and frustrated opponents.
Karn: Karn Liberated is not in this deck because once, a long long time ago, someone stole karn and restarted the game which lost me four emblems.
Kasmina: I don't know anything about Kasmina as a character but she sure is here.
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Kasmina, Enigma Sage: This card is in here for one reason and one reason only, that sweet sweet passive ability. And the fact that she lowers the curve a little bit, I guess. She serves as a good removal soak too. SO three reasons.
Passive Ability: This gives every single one of the already pretty busted uncommon walkers from War of the Spark a +2, which takes them from powerhouses to game winning threats. If this card did only that, I would run it. And frankly, it does do only that, really.
+2: Scry 1 is decent for a plus ability, nothing to write home about but doing it a few times while rushing other walkers towards unkillability or ultimate is great.
-X: Fractals have no abilities, which make them mediocre blockers. If I needed death triggers for any reason, this is where I'd turn to get them.
-8: Cannot be activated immediately with DS. I seriously doubt I will ever use this ability. Best case I guess is casting the Ultimatum to return some stuff or Savor the Moment to get me a little more time for other walkers to win me the game. It doesn't really matter though because of what she enables other walkers to do.
Kiora: I love this fish lady a ton. I used to run Octopus-fight-time Kiora Until the War update brought me so many new goodies.
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Kiora, the Crashing Wave: If this were printed today, there's no way it would start at 2 and ult at 5. But it is this way, allowing for some incredible proliferate shenanigans.
+1: Turning off the most dangerous attacker each turn cycle is pretty sweet for early boardstate protection. In the late game, when the targets are things like blightsteel colossus or steel hellkite, it feel incredibly powerful.
-1: Explore is okay but when you spend so much time so close to an army of krakens it feels like a waste of loyalty, esp bc you already need 4 mana to get her out in the first place.
-5: Cannot be activated immediately with DS. It's pretty hard to go wrong with end step 9/9s. The low cost of this ultimate means its not uncommon to get it off twice before someone eventually finds a way to kill it.
Narset: Narset was a wonderful story character from a point in the games history where it was at a new high and I have more fond memories of that time then negative ones of being one shot by Narset, Enlightened Master combo edh and modern decks.
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Narset, Parter of Veils: As far as uncommon walkers go, this is easily the second best one ever printed, behind Ashiok of course.
Passive Ability: I used to run Leovold before he got banned 80% for this ability 20% for his draw when targeted trigger. I'm fine getting a walker with this oppressive passive stapled on, even if it doesn't do anything else.
-2: This hits 55% of the deck, meaning that its incredibly likely to hit something, and after reading all this I'm sure you know you'll hit something good.
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Narset Transcendent: This was released as an experiment to see how lower costed walkers would work with high starting loyalty. Starting at 6 loyalty was an enormous amount and demanded a piece of removal because attacking it just wasn't efficient enough.
+1: In this deck, Narset's +1 is used to find good enchantments and sorceries mostly. If need be you can snag a walker off the top but its really not the primary card type you need to dig for. You ought to hit something about half the time.
-2: This ability usually doesn't get used in games because working towards her absolutely backbreaking ult is almost always better than recasting some board wipe or tutor. The big exception to this rule is Savor the Moment because a three mana time stretch is no joke and almost guarantees some walker ulting.
-9: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. If this ultimate goes off there is a 90% chance the tables gonna scoop it up and go to a new game. The very rare times when it doesn't end here are when folks are playing super heavy creature based decks, like elfball, zombies, gruul, ect., in which case most of the removal for walkers is out and you desperately need to focus on token generation and protecting your front lines.
Nissa: Nissa is the personification of green and usually relies very heavily on land- or elf-based strategies to be at her maximum power. The one Nissa I run in here does not require that deckbuilding focus as she's only going to be around for one, maybe two turns.
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Nissa, Vital Force: the closeness of her starting loyalty and her ultimate makes Vital Force an emblem machine. Combine with Pir or Oath of Gids or Spark Double and you get the emblem instantly.
+1: This gives you one extra mana or a blocker for one round. It's no all-star ability, but it gets the job done.
-3: Bringing a permanent back from the yard to your hand is a wonderful move, however I almost always find it better to get her uninteractable card draw engine online before thinking about bringing something I've already lost once back.
-6: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. Drawing cards is good. Playing lands is good. Drawing cards when you play a land is very good. Making this untouchable by any kind of non-player-removal is incredible. This is almost always the first emblem I try to get every game and is one of the only emblems in this deck that isn't an instant win.
Oko: By now everyone knows how far they missed the mark on this hot boy. Banned in standard, hated everywhere else, Oko needs somewhere safe to thrive, and amongst some of the greatest walkers ever printed this deck is a perfect fit for him.
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Oko, Thief of Crowns: I honestly wasn't planning on adding Oko to this deck when he came out, nor when he rose to the standard warping level that got him banned. In fact the only reason he ever even got in is because my close friend opened a foil one in a pack and traded him to me for some cards for a deck he's trying to build.
+2: Food's nifty and all but everyone knows this isn't why Oko is good.
+1: Beast Within is an EDH all-star seeing play in almost every green deck, but this green deck doesn't quite have room for single use targeted removal. This PLUS ability (which for sure should've been a minus) turns off combo pieces, commanders, equipment, mana dorks/rocks, and everything in between. It is simply one of the best hosers printed on a planeswalker card ever and I'm very glad to have it protecting my deck. Also it doesn't win EDH games on its own but will still suck removal away from more dangerous threats.
-5: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. I guess you can steal stuff or something with this ability? Might feel good swapping a token for someone's Aetherflux Reservoir but who knows if I'll ever actually use this ability.
Sorin: Old man Sorin has a plethora of powerful cards in the format and I was ecstatic at the news that I could finally have them all on the field together. He probably benefits the most from the planeswalker uniqueness rule disappearing because all of his cards are designed to sick around a long, long time.
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Sorin, Grim Nemesis: This beefy boy is all upside, with a high starting loyalty, spot removal, and a goofy, huge ultimate he makes for a wonderful top-end walker.
+1: This deck runs a few high cost cards, but usually you'll do 4 or 5 damage to each opponent with this ability. I have seen games end though because I've flipped over a Kozilek and nixed 10 from each opponent.
-X: With six starting loyalty the flexibility of this ability is great. Works great for nixing commanders, threats, and walkers. The incidental life gain is just incidental.
-9: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. Legit question for rural Americans - How do I kill the 30-50 lifelink vampires that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?
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Sorin Markov: It is very tough to justify a triple-pip card in a four color deck, however the OG Sorin is hands down one of the greatest planeswalkers available in the format and wholly justifies his inclusion in almost any deck that can run him.
+2: Drain two from any target is nice dork removal with incidental lifegain. Adding two loyalty is also majorly relevant considering the ludicrous strength of his -3.
-3: This ability has put Sorin on many folks' chopping block for cards to be banned in commander. When this goes off the moment he touches down, one player is a turn cycle from death no matter where they were before hand. I face a reasonable amount of Oloro decks and this is a lot easier than trying to push through lethal commander damage.
-7: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. If you can manage to push Sorin all the way back up past his -3, Mindslavering folks is so, so much fun. The disruption caused by this kind of an ability is wild, putting at least one person, but usually two, way behind.
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Sorin, Solemn Visitor: This is one of the walkers I see the least of in superfriends lists which leads me to believe that folks don't understand how powerful this little guy is. He's perfectly costed for the amount of value he generates and is always a satisfying play.
+1: With the number of tokens produced by this deck, boosting power and granting lifelink is a wonderful attack deterrent and if you're ahead on board you can drag in a bunch of life, which is always a nice thing to be doing.
-2: Flying blockers are incredibly key in EDH and I'm usually happy to minus for one.
-6: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. This emblem is within easy reach most of the time and until you play against it a few times most players really don't see it as much of a problem. Most decks don't tend to go too wide in EDH because of the prevalence of board wipes in the format, instead going for several high value creatures, this forces them to choose one of their valuable creatures to lose every turn. This is also one of the best emblems to copy with things like Spark Double or Rings of Brighthearth because double edict every turn is so hard to come back from.
Tamiyo: I love this moon bunny and I'm stoked her two mythic cards are so incredibly powerful, with strong card advantage and insurmountable ultimates.
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Tamiyo, Field Researcher: I still remember the day this card got spoiled. I immediately went and grabbed some colored pencils and an index card and drew up a proxy to test what I knew would be a perfect fit for this deck. I traded for one at the Eldritch Moon pre-release just so I could have her ASAP.
+1: This can be a good political tool. If you don't want one or two specific creatures from attacking, pick them and understand that you wont get your draws, which is usually a fine trade. If that's not the case pick two of your tokens and swing in for draws. Also works amazing with Atraxa out because not only do you draw from your attacks, but thanks to vigilance, you draw from blocks too.
-2: Tapping down permanents for a turn cycle and a half is nice, especially if the targets are unblockable threats or mana producers.
-7: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. This ult is nutty. Its Ancestral Recall stapled onto an uninteractable copy of Omniscience. This is one of the big game-winning ultimates. If you hit it there's no coming back for any of your opponents.
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Tamiyo, the Moon Sage: Moon Sage is a classic superfriends staple for good reason.
+1: Tapping a threat on a plus is a great way to protect you and your walkers from harm. It's important to have the protection available while building to ultimates, which makes it better than the other Tamiyo's -2, which draws you further from the game winning end goal.
-2: Using this ability after some fool slams a Disrupt Decorum is the greatest feeling you'll ever have. Mostly you'll pull in two to four cards off of this which is great value and helps gas your hand up.
-8: Can be activated immediately with DS and but she will die. This ultimate enables some very dirty plays. If you have Doubling Season out this allows you to cast and ult and recast and ult many of the walkers in this deck. If not, you can recast and stack Savor the Moments for enough time to do anything you want. The infinite hand size is just a nice bonus.
Teferi: I honestly don't think there's a bad Teferi card out there. Without room for his creature form, all three of his ludicrous walkers make this list and stand head and shoulders over most of the rest of the walkers.
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Teferi, Hero of Dominaria: Big Teferi is one of the most straightforward walkers that you can run. Each of his abilities is exactly the thing you want it to be doing without the added complexities that make other walkers interesting. This dude replaced Venser, the Sojourner
+1: Plus to draw a card works fine for me.
-3: Bury a threat in someone's library.
-8: Can be activated immediately with DS and but he will die. Win the game by doing what you want to be doing anyway.
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Teferi, Temporal Archmage: Look, I know you can get infinite planeswalker activations off of this guy and The Chain Veil, but no, I am not going to ever re-add that garbage artifact to my list. If this walker isn't on the field, the Chain Veil is a Bad Card.
+1: I like this form of card selection more than I like card draw itself because it has the ability to get around cards like WAR Narset and Omen Machine which I bump into a lot in my meta. Also it helps you dodge land flooding, which isn't much of an issue with the number of fetches available to you, but can still happen.
-1: This is the big reason to run this card. Untapping cards like Sisay or Cornucopia is so insanely valuable. Also the fact that it's four permanents allows you do to cast most of the cards in this deck, which tend to hover around 4cmc.
-10: Can be activated immediately with DS and but he will die. Whoever wrote this emblem is a madman. The second you start activating loyalty abilities in someone else's upkeep, everyone scoops it up. No exceptions.
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Teferi, Time Raveler: Was this card a mistake? Yeah probably, but that's why its so at home here. Its one of the bottom cards on the curve of this deck and does more than I could ever imagine a 3cmc walker ever doing.
Passive Ability: I am a big Timmy, raised on Naya in Alara, and I hate Blue. I hate counterspells and cyclonic rifts. This ought to be fairly apparent by the inclusion of exactly One non-sorcery speed card in this entire list and if you look at my other decks you'll see the vast majority are creature based and gruul or gruul+ colored. In most of my lists I run City of Solitude or Dosan the Falling Leaf, but I didn't think there was room here for this kind of ability until the nutjobs at WotC printed this insanely pushed monster of a walker.
+1: I have one Instant and ten Sorceries. Being able to cast those sorceries at instant speed makes for some very interesting plays. Dropping a Primevals' Glorious Rebirth on some poor fools end step is just dirty.
-3: Bouncing a thing and drawing a card is nice I guess. Not as nice as it is in other formats, but still it can delay game ending plays or save walkers for a little while longer.
Tezzeret: The first planeswalker I ever opened in a booster pack was Tezzeret the Seeker. That card began my love of walkers and is ultimately responsible for the formation of this deck. I wanted a good Tezz that would fit this style of deck, and I wasn't satisfied until M19.
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Tezzeret, Artifice Master: This bad boy does everything I want a Tezz to do by advancing the boardstate, my hand, and working up to a devilish ultimate.
+1: I've said it several times and I'll say it again: Flying blockers are key. It does sadden me though that these thopters are colorless like the thopters of Kaladesh and not blue like on his homeplane of Esper. Just a missed opportunity.
0: A draw ability that doesn't set back the loyalty of the walker its on? Hell yeah. It's very common to have three artifacts after one plus activation thanks to the reasonable number of mana rocks and value artifacts in here, so most of the time you should be able to net two cards each time.
-9: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. End step Planar Bridge doesn't win the game on its own, but it does allow you to grab thing to end the game for you. What's most important to remember with this is it does happen on your end step, so most of the time you're best off grabbing powerful enchantments first like Privileged Position or Doubling Season because nothing feels worse than grabbing a walker you can't activate and then it dies.
Eugine: The spirit dragon was one of my favorite part of the Tarkir story line and I am glad they continued to tie his existence to that of Nicol Bolas (the villain from my first ever block).
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Ugin, the Ineffable: This is one of the most interesting WAR walkers, with his double use plus and extremely versatile minus. I also enjoy the relaxing feel of having a walker who doesn't need me to worry about having the right lands to cast.
Passive Ability: There are only two artifacts in this list that become free thanks to this, but that's fine, I'll happily play a one mana Rings of Brighthearth and use that spare mana to activate it.
+1: This both creates a blocker to protect your walkers and slowly draws you a card. It's everything you could hope for out of a plus ability at once and I love how it works in practice.
-3: This just destroys a thing. Permanent removal is so nice, and the majority of the time I use this ability I'm hitting something tough to reach like an enchantment or walker.
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Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: My Fate Reforged pre-release was the best deck I played with in any sealed environment ever. I opened one Ugin and two Atarka, World Render's and mopped up everyone there. Then, as a prize I opened an Ugin's Fate pack and pulled the alt-art Spirit Dragon which has lived in this deck ever since.
+2: Sometimes you just gotta Ghostfire someone. Excellent removal, sometimes great damage to the face when you need it to be. And it even dodges protection.
-X: This is the most fucked up ability. First things first: No dies triggers. You -0 and poof, all tokens evaporate. You -3 and every small supporting permanent vanishes while the majority of your walkers, enchantments, and Atraxa hang around. You -6 and Its almost always just Ugin left, which is a great place to start winning from.
-10: Can be activated immediately with DS and survive. The inverse of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker's ability, this makes you win, rather than making someone lose, which in my opinion is usually better. The high concentration of permanents in this deck almost guarantees you'll hit enough to flood the board with value.
