MTG – Karn Liberated: Good Planeswalker or Bad Planeswalker?
An analysis of the first colorless planeswalker in MTG history! Will he become the next Jace The Mind Sculptor or simply be as terrible as Chandra? Read and find out!
Hello readers! It has been awhile since I’ve posted something, but as you regulars know, when a new set rolls out I can’t help but write about it. The votes are in and Phyrexia has won the war (dreams do come true!). So, with New Phyrexia right around the corner, spoilers are starting to leak. One such spoiler was a planeswalker we’ve all been waiting to see. Let’s get right to it rather than draggin this intro out any further…
Ah, the big man himself. Karn. Now, as with all my planeswalker articles, I won’t be getting into his history too much or speculation on storyline. I mean, I’m sure they’ll explain how his spark returned after giving it up to seal the rift over Tolaria (or whatever it was he did). I’m just going to give my opinion as to what Karn’s good attributes are and what his bad attributes are.
P.S. I know he is called Karn Liberated. This was just the roughly translated mock-up. The name is the only difference. The abilites are all the same.
The Good
First off, Karn is Karn! The flavor and fun of having a truly iconic character from MTG in the palm of your hands is just great. That alone will keep his price up for a while after he falls from glory (as almost all MTG cards do after rotating out of their best formats). He’s cool, and that’s a point in his favor.
As I mentioned in the intro, Karn is the first planeswalker to be colorless. This means that he can go into any deck, which implies a certain versatility that isn’t always available with other planeswalkers. Chances are there won’t be any other colorless walkers for a very long time (or ever again if Karn proves to be too powerful). Playable everywhere=awesome. Especially since colorless EDH decks can now have a planeswalker to use!
The loyalty on Karn is immense. Planeswalkers with higher mana costs usually have high loyalties, but this card is different. The high loyalty on this card coupled with the large plus ability makes Karn difficult to kill off by swarming him with creatures or hitting him with spells. I feel it’s based on Karn’s reputation of being indestructible. Even his old creature incarnation he had huge toughness (eight when his ability has triggered). You don’t want to pay for a walker and have it taken out right after playing it. This high loyalty helps keep that from happening.
