Warning: Not to be taken remotely seriously.
Magic: The Gathering introduced the Planeswalker type in Lorwyn, representing other Planeswalkers you can call upon for aid, separate from the "player" Planeswalkers ( = humans with decks of Magic cards). Thematically they are "allies" that go home if they get beaten up, but that's nothing new for the DL (plenty of enemies which auto-retreat after a certain amount of health damage, and in the DL we just use that amount as their effective life total). Anyway, Planeswalkers have from 3-5 abilities, all of which can increase or decrease "loyalty" which is basically HP (see above, once they hit 0 loyalty they "go home"). They can use this abilities once per turn at sorcery speed - in the DL, that means no waiting around for an opportune time to use a move and no reaction usages. They are perfectly average speed as a result, too. Many Planeswalkers have several form choices - only one can be in play at once, and they're the same character at different points in time, so basically think bosses you have to fight 3 times with different ability sets each time.
Assumptions:
* The average DL opponent is a MTG "creature" who is also his own controller. This is important since many abilities aimed at killing creatures don't work on Planeswalkers, but the role of the average dueler is closer to a creature than a Planeswalker really. (Maybe not for rare exceptions like SN Reyva, but eh.) Since the player behind the creature is the same entity in the DL, I'd probably let damage that affects players / planeswalkers specifically affect enemy duelers in the DL, though.
* Despite using loyalty to fuel their abilities, loyalty is clearly much closer to HP than MP. I will pretend that MTG planeswalkers have a library of their own they'd use when fighting a duel. It rarely matters and if you-the-player lose due to library depletion, the ally planeswalker presumably loses as well. Anyway, in Magic, drawing a card with an empty library is a loss. So think Star Ocean 3 with a slight time delay - if you hit HP 0 you die, but if you hit MP 0 and start a turn you also die, and special moves can be fueled by HP loss. Library depletion is tough to do quickly in Magic, so you can argue that Planeswalkers should all have higher than average MP to reflect the substantially different difficulties in an HP vs. an MP victory.
* Average HP is tough to determine. In-game, unsupported Planeswalkers tend to go down *fast* to creature assaults - 1-2HKO'd. I sarcastically noted in chat that average damage should be 8 to reflect killing a player Planeswalker in 2.5 hits. If you take this literally, all Planeswalkers are OHKO bait. I personally would probably stick a 20 in the average to pull it up and reflect the general frail feeling of the cast compared to the two big boys fighting it out. If you insist on a straight apples-to-apples comparison, the cast gets much tougher, opening up some other lines of stall for 'em. Additionally, it's not clear if multiple forms of the same Planeswalker should be counted, and if the average should use the "overall best" form for a Planeswalker, or the "twinked for HP" form of a Planeswalker. Fun.
* The damage average is even more of a mess, since many Planeswalkers don't have direct damage at all, and for others their damage hurts themselves. See below.
* In Magic, "equipment" are artifacts that can buff creatures up and give them special abilities, similar to aura enchantments. Thus it's possible to interpret artifact destruction as equipment-breaking... except that artifact destruction is worthless against creatures who are clearly equipped with stuff in their artwork but don't have an "equipment" type on them. I personally would ignore this argument except for rare cases where there's a closer thematic fit.
* Similarly, many ongoing effects are enchantments in Magic, but enchantment removal does nothing against creatures who are clearly using magical enhancements to fight in their artwork, or against effects like +1/+1 counters. I'd be a bit more liberal here and let enchantment removal act as a dispel against some effects, though.
* Lots of Planeswalkers can summon creature tokens to their aid. Unless they have Haste, these tokens need to wait a turn to attack, but they can cover for the Planeswalker and block incoming single-target attacks for them (think WAXF Katrina's support). I'd argue that something like a bow isn't enough to get around this; you want something that explicitly lets you target anything to ignore blockers, or long-range magic, or the like. "Bounce" (=return to hand) instantly kills tokens, so you can argue that certain turn-skip effects kill them outright. All creatures, including tokens, have 100% regen at the end of every MTG turn, so either OHKO them as they come out or ignore them with something that can get past their blocking. If you enforce MTG combat rules, fighting with creatures normally has FE-style counters where both sides deal damage unless one is getting killed by a special ability / from range / by first strike / etc. (Alternatively, you can see faster duelers as just doing their damage before average speed and killing them on the spot as they spawn.)
* Lifegain is also a mess, since normally you-the-player gain life in such cases, but what when the ally Planeswalker is the "player"? They certainly can't spend this life on loyalty abilities, but it functions identically for taking hits. I will interpret ally-lifegain as a "shield" that takes hits first before loyalty. Thus Ajani Goldmane's ability "+1: You gain 2 life" gives him 1 loyalty and 2 life; if he took 4 points of damage, he'd lose his 2 life and then 2 further points of loyalty in a duel. (The alternative is seeing lifegain as doing squat, which doesn't sit right with me.)
Averages (fuller lists at bottom):
Average starting loyalty including 1x Player Planeswalker, "best" form:
4.84Average starting loyalty including 1x Player Planeswalker, highest loyalty form:
5.11Average starting loyalty, "best" form:
4Average starting loyalty, highest loyalty form:
4.28Rough damage average:
1.9 (1-turn), 4.75 (2.5 killpoint)Official artwork / list of Planeswalkers:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?output=spoiler&method=visual&type=+%5bPlaneswalker%5dThe cast:
YouLife / Loyalty: 20
Abilities: Some ~14,000 of them, check Gatherer.
Kind of a Gary Stu, think your average JRPG silent main character who has full twinkability unlike their castmates. Can be whatever personality you want and has access to reaction spells to be "faster" than usual. Anyway, doesn't count as a creature, but is statusable (see Glistener Elf (poison), Mindslaver (charm),
Stone-Cold Basilisk (stone), etc.). There's some luck in the draw, but basically wins on turn 1 quite a lot - a W/B deck filled with
Innocent Blood (ignores ID immunity!), Swords to Plowshares (very hard to immune ID), Vendetta, etc. pulls off a turn 1 kill a whole lot of the time. Really tough. Even with status, it's not a done deal, as you can fill your deck with spells like Force of Will / Disrupting Shoal, or alternatively 4x
Gemstone Caverns + stuff like
Orim's Chant or Silence to complement it for a turn 0 lockdown. Against physical status or special ability status rather than magical status, there's
Shining Shoal, Stifle + Gemstone Caverns, and a few other weird options like
Serum Powder. Yeah.
High Godlike, only held back a bit by randomness vs. turn 1 threats + not enough density of spells that do a few specific effects reliably on turn 1.
Nicol Bolas5 loyalty.
+3: Destroy target noncreature permanent.
-2: Gain control of target creature.
-9: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker deals 7 damage to target player. That player discards seven cards, then sacrifices seven permanents.
Immune Charm and win, don't and lose. Fast duelers that can inflict 3 or more damage (~.60-75 PCHP) can knock him into range where using Charm is out, at least. Some flavor of
Heavy depending on HP respect. Wins against some Heavy stallers who immune Charm via breaking random stuff lying around the arena and using his ultimate for enjoyable finishes.
Jace Berelen4 Loyalty
+1: Until your next turn, whenever a creature an opponent controls attacks, it gets -1/-0 until end of turn.
-2: Reveal the top three cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other on the bottom of your library in any order.
-8: For each player, search that player's library for a nonland card and exile it, then that player shuffles his or her library. You may cast those cards without paying their mana costs.
For a badass in-game who got banned in a bunch of environments, Jace translates poorly to the DL. Jace the Mind Sculptor has an incredible tempo bounce of locking an opponent's best creature up for 3 turns, and a Brainstorm every turn if you don't need defense is usually game over... but not really a long-term solution in the DL, where he bounces an opponent 3 times, he comes back on the field, then JTMS wanders off. Jace, Architect of Thought has a mill (= MP bust?) game but his good mill ability is +0 loyalty, so that's rough. Base Jace Berelen can get +2 Loyalty regen but only at the cost of everyone drawing cards, which is tough to translate but probably means powering up his opponent somehow without support.
That leaves Jace, Architect of Thought above. He functionally has a +2 ability due to the attack debuff; it randomly helps against speedy low-damage types who suffer more from having their attack ruined. Anyway, against low-to-average-damage opponents who can't status him and can't do something like charge attacks for one single big hit, he can slowly gain loyalty and then eventually steal their best moves and throw 'em back at them to actually win with.
High Light.
Chandra Nalaar6 Loyalty
+1: Chandra Nalaar deals 1 damage to target player.
-X: Chandra Nalaar deals X damage to target creature.
-8: Chandra Nalaar deals 10 damage to target player and each creature he or she controls.
The good news: Tied for game-best starting loyalty. The bad news: she needs to burn that loyalty to do significant damage. Thus she absolutely despises faster duelers who can knock her out of death doom fire range, but can unload with 5 damage against enemies slower than her (~ a OHKO). Her first ability might be vaguely helpful against duelers with horrible resources.
Low Middle. She's got some other forms as well, but Chandra Ablaze is a headache (discarding a card is a TERRIBLE disadvantage in-game), and Chandra the Firebrand is just worse in the DL.
Ajani GoldmaneAjani Goldmane4 Loyalty
+1: You gain 2 life.
-1: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control. Those creatures gain vigilance until end of turn.
-6: Put a white Avatar creature token onto the battlefield. It has "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to your life total."
Ajani Vengeant3 Loyalty
+1: Target permanent doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
-2: Ajani Vengeant deals 3 damage to target creature or player and you gain 3 life.
-7: Destroy all lands target player controls.
Ajani has two relevant forms. The first one is pure loyalty / life stall; opponents must emit more than 3 MTG damage consistently to kill him before running out of resources. If they don't, eventually they will run out of resources, then a huge Avatar will smash them. Ajani Vengeant is weirder. His lockdown ability prevents untap - most creatures' attacks require tapping, and some creature's abilities require tapping. (Kumano would not care, Prodigal Pyromancer would.) This is a total headache as a translation so I'm not inclined to think too hard about it aside from definitely catching characters who spam basic attacks (e.g. Fire Emblem), but the simpler option is blasting an opponent with a
Lightning Helix if said opponent is slower, or inexplicably failed to knock Ajani below 2 loyalty (he only starts with 3). Can help against the frail, and the lifegain offsets the loyalty loss some.
Garruk Wildspeaker3 Loyalty
+1: Put a 3/3 green Beast creature token onto the battlefield.
-3: Draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.
-6: Put a 6/6 green Wurm creature token onto the battlefield for each land you control.
Can you deal with an endless parade of 3/3 Beasts? Alternatively, can you get around them and shoot Garruk down directly while he gains +1 Loyalty a turn? Tough questions. Garruk is quite the spoiler.
Heavy. He also has an alternate form that can deal 3 direct damage at the cost of eating a counter, but that is risky against most duelers, and has other weird stuff going on like transforming; just read
Garruk Relentless on Gatherer if you're curious.
Liliana Vess3 Loyalty
+1: Each player discards a card.
-2: Target player sacrifices a creature.
-6: Separate all permanents target player controls into two piles. That player sacrifices all permanents in the pile of his or her choice.
Almost 100% a speed check (or a do-you-have-autolife / come with a friend you can sacrifice / are a multipart or multiform boss). If you are slower, YOU LOSE. Instant-death protection I'd see as irrelevant against a sacrifice effect; you have to pick someone on your side, and they die. I wouldn't even see boss immunities working, sacrifice effects are in fact great at taking apart the nastiest creatures in Magic like Emrakul. On the bright side, untargetable players (=creatures in the DL?) can shrug it off, but that's about it.
Spoiler Middle, but could really go in any division other than Godlike, she loses plenty in Light and wins plenty in Heavy.
Karn 6 loyalty
+4: Target player exiles a card from his or her hand.
-3: Exile target permanent.
-14: Restart the game, leaving in exile all non-Aura permanent cards exiled with Karn Liberated. Then put those cards onto the battlefield under your control.
Exile is basically unstoppable perma-death if it can be legally played - the main way around it in Magic is untargetability. I'd be inclined to see it as similar to Auron's Eject status; you can't really immune it, though maybe you stop the effect from happening in the first place with Canopy Defense or something. Failing that, depending on where you see Planeswalker HP, +4 might be a lot; it's certainly game-best "regen" while also limiting Karn's opponents' options lightly (but not much, you draw every turn in Magic). Could be helpful for some attrition wars for duelers who run out of gas.
Heavy.
Elspeth TirelElspeth Tirel4 Loyalty:
+2: You gain 1 life for each creature you control.
-2: Put three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens onto the battlefield.
-5: Destroy all other permanents except for lands and tokens.
Elspeth, Knight Errant4 Loyalty
+1: Put a 1/1 white Soldier creature token onto the battlefield.
+1: Target creature gets +3/+3 and gains flying until end of turn.
-8: You get an emblem with "Artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and lands you control are indestructible."
Elspeth's forms are quite similar. Both absolutely get rolled by any kind of remotely existant multitarget. Both forms get rolled by "distance" shots that can get around blockers; Tirel has to take a huge loyalty hit to summon her first wave, and Knight Errant's offense is extremely slow to get rolling. If a dueler is seen as "trampling" MTG-style to get past her puny Soldiers she also has issues. That said, despite all those provisos... if you CAN'T do that, she's extremely nasty. Infinite wave of blockers, and eventually her blockers become indestructible, or a much faster appearing wave that also gains Elspeth life if she survives to turn 2 with some soldiers still around.
High Middle I guess.
Gideon Jura6 Loyalty
+2: During target opponent's next turn, creatures that player controls attack Gideon Jura if able.
-2: Destroy target tapped creature.
0: Until end of turn, Gideon Jura becomes a 6/6 Human Soldier creature that's still a planeswalker. Prevent all damage that would be dealt to him this turn.
Now we're talking! By far the best translation to the DL, Gideon has provoke, instant death, and shear beatdown. Note that turning into a 6/6 on turn 1 isn't very helpful because he doesn't have Haste and can't attack, but he can just gain some life and force an attack on him. Then he either instant death's his opponent if such an attack "tapped" them (most likely it did), or if immuned / the creature has vigilance, he cruises in for 6 damage while immuning damage from counterattacks. Oh and he starts out with tied for game-best loyalty. Not bad.
High Heavy, he mostly fears fast status whores or slower duelers who inflict their status as an added part of an attack. (Side note: Do not respect the Provoke TOO much. If a creature has a tap ability, nothing stops them from using it first, then not attacking as they're not able... although this sets them up for Gideon's second ability of course.)
Nissa Revane2 Loyalty
+1: Search your library for a card named Nissa's Chosen and put it onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
+1: You gain 2 life for each Elf you control.
-7: Search your library for any number of Elf creature cards and put them onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
Nissa's ChosenCreature — Elf Warrior
If Nissa's Chosen would die, put it on the bottom of its owner's library instead.
2/3
Her summoning doesn't cost her ally a turn, or mana, or anything, so I'd see it as legit in a duel (despite technically using the player's library). Anyway, she's a Garruk remix, except she starts with 2 loyalty rather than 3, and her creatures are 2/3 rather than 3/3, and there's a limit to 4 of them on the battlefield at once. So... she's worse, and really fears the fast who easily OHKO her puny 2 starting loyalty.
Low Middle.
Sorin MarkovSorin Markov4 Loyalty
+2: Sorin Markov deals 2 damage to target creature or player and you gain 2 life.
-3: Target opponent's life total becomes 10.
-7: You control target player during that player's next turn.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad+1: Put a 1/1 black Vampire creature token with lifelink onto the battlefield.
-2: You get an emblem with "Creatures you control get +1/+0."
-6: Destroy up to three target creatures and/or other planeswalkers. Return each card put into a graveyard this way to the battlefield under your control.
Two solid form choices - spam parasitic damage, or be an Elspeth remix against duelers who can't deal with the endless chump blockers (who also gain Sorin some life via lifelink). Both of Sorin's ultimates are pretty fatal, although immuning ID / charm can help.
Heavy off versatility even if each form individually is more like High Middle / Low Heavy.
Vraska the Unseen5 Loyalty
+1: Until your next turn, whenever a creature deals combat damage to Vraska the Unseen, destroy that creature.
-3: Destroy target nonland permanent.
-7: Put three 1/1 black Assassin creature tokens onto the battlefield with "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player loses the game."
Do you immune ID? If so, you win. If not, you still have options. Ideally you OHKO her, although it's a double KO draw if you can 2HKO through Vraska's first ability with 3 damage or more. Lastly, if you can knock her off her second ability, note that her first ability triggers only on "combat damage," so sneaky long-range stuff that does >1 damage might be able to whittler her down anyway. Pretty dependent on HP respect - some flavor of
Middle with bad HP respect, but if 5 loyalty is moderately tanky, she can make
Heavy.
In the land of do not rankThese guys all heavily depend on other stuff on the board, and don't really translate to a duel without having to make massive assumptions, since they basically lack a way to win in a straight-up duel. Tamiyo & Sarkhan are the closest; Tamiyo can lock down someone forever but lacks a way to finish the job which might be endless draws, and Sarkhan Vol has a single shot of one-turn charm which might kill duelers who can target themselves with fatal status, or legally attack themselves and OHKO themselves, but blargh, he's Puny-bait with occasional weird spoiling. (I used that form for the loyalty average over Sarkhan the Mad though, as turning an opponent into a 5/5 Dragon is even worse.)
Koth of the Hammer
Sarkhan Vol / Sarkhan the Mad
Tezzeret the Seeker / Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
Venser, the Sojourner
Stat comparisons:A non-"best" form with higher loyalty is marked in italics. Unrankable planeswalkers are marked with an underline (but still included in the average - feel free to take an average without 'em if you like).
Starting Loyalty:20 - Player planeswalkers
7 -
Sarkhan the Mad6 - Gideon, Chandra, Karn
5 - Nicol Bolas, Vraska,
Liliana Vess4 - Ajani, Elspeth, Jace, Sorin,
Sarkhan (Vol), Tamiyo, Tezzeret3 - Garruk, Liliana (of the Veil),
Koth, Venser2 - Nissa,
TibaltAverage starting loyalty including 1x Player Planeswalker, "best" form: 4.84
Average starting loyalty including 1x Player Planeswalker, highest loyalty form: 5.11
Average starting loyalty, "best" form: 4
Average starting loyalty, highest loyalty form: 4.28
I personally would lean toward including the Player Planeswalker in these calculations - PWs are really quite frail in a game designed around taking an opponent from 20 to 0 and fall fast unsupported, and using a higher loyalty average makes fewer Planeswalkers get away with a strict stall game based around spamming loyalty up abilities.
--
Damage is a headache, as the token-producers damage is highly backloaded and also implausible in many games (it happens only when an opponent has some kind of ranged / special strike and ignores the budding token army to shoot the Planeswalker directly in a damage race - the tokens don't live as long against, say, Multitarget damage spam). This ignores planeswalkers who can't deal damage at all. I'll provide both a 2-turn and a 3-turn average.
3-turn damage12 - Gideon, Player Planeswalker (2x 6/6 smashes, rough guess for a burn deck with Lightning Bolt / Lava Spike / etc.)
9 - Garruk (turn 2 3/3 Beast attack, turn 3 2x 3/3 Beast attack)
6 - Elspeth, Sorin (2 turns of 3 1/1 Soldiers attacking, turn 2 2/3 Chosen attack + turn 3 2x Chosen attack, 3 turns of Sorin's drain)
3 - Ajani, Chandra (Lightning Helix blast, 3x +1 activations from Chandra)
3-turn maximum damage, best case, ignoring self-damage14 - Player Planeswalker (toss in stuff like Fireblast and Shard Volley that burns up your resources permanently)
12 - Gideon (2x 6/6 smashes)
9 - Garruk, Chandra (turn 2 3/3 Beast attack, turn 3 2x 3/3 Beast attack; 2 +1 activations, then a -7 doom blast)
7 - Nicol Bolas (ultimate on turn 3)
6 - Elspeth, Sorin (2 turns of 3 1/1 Soldiers attacking, turn 2 2/3 Chosen attack + turn 3 2x Chosen attack, 3 turns of Sorin's drain)
3 - Ajani (Lightning Helix blast)
Garruk can also manage 9 in banzai mode with Relentless -> 2/2 Wolf -> 2/2 Wolf -> 3 damage smash (highly implausible).
2-turn damage7 - Player Planeswalker (rough guess for a burn deck with Lightning Bolt / Lava Spike / etc.)
6 - Gideon (6/6 smash)
4 - Sorin (2 turns of Sorin's drain)
3 - Ajani, Elspeth, Garruk (Lightning Helix blast, 3x 1/1 Soldier attack, 3/3 Beast attack)
2 - Nissa, Chandra (2/3 Chosen attack, 2x +1 activations from CHandra)
2-turn maximum damage, best case, ignoring self-damage9 - Player Planeswalker (rough guess for a burn deck with Lightning Bolt / Lava Spike / etc.)
7 - Chandra (+1 -> zap)
6 - Gideon (6/6 smash)
5 - Garruk (2/2 Wolf + 3 damage from Garruk Relentless)
4 - Sorin (2 turns of Sorin's drain)
3 - Ajani, Elspeth (Lightning Helix blast, 3x 1/1 Soldier attack)
2 - Nissa (2/3 Chosen attack)
3-turn damage average including 1x Player Planeswalker, consistent damage: 7.1 (1 round: 2.4, 2.5 killpoint: 5.9)
3-turn damage average including 1x Player Planeswalker, berserk best-case damage ignoring loyalty loss to self vs. goldfish: 7.8 (1 round: 2.6, 2.5 killpoint: 6.4)
3-turn damage average, consistent damage: 6.4 (1 round: 2.1, 2.5 killpoint: 5.4)
3-turn damage average, berserk best-case damage ignoring loyalty loss to self vs. goldfish: 7.25 (1 round: 2.4, 2.5 killpoint: 6.0)
2-turn damage average including 1x Player Planeswalker, consistent damage: 3.75 (1 round: 1.9, 2.5 killpoint: 4.7)
2-turn damage average including 1x Player Planeswalker, berserk best-case damage ignoring loyalty loss to self vs. goldfish: 4.9 (1 round: 2.4, 2.5 killpoint: 6.1)
2-turn damage average, consistent damage: 3.3 (1 round: 1.6, 2.5 killpoint: 4.1)
2-turn damage average, berserk best-case damage ignoring loyalty loss to self vs. goldfish: 4.3 (1 round: 2.1, 2.5 killpoint: 5.4)
And now, averages of averages!
2.5 turn damage average including 1x Player Planeswalker, consistent damage:
2.1 (1 round), 5.4 (killpoint)2.5 turn damage average including 1x Player Planeswalker, average of consistent & berserk damage:
2.3 (1 round), 5.8 (killpoint)2.5 turn damage average, consistent damage:
1.85 (1 round), 4.6 (killpoint)2.5 turn damage average, average of consistent & berserk damage:
2.05 (1 round), 5.1 (killpoint)Since lots of Planeswalkers can't even do damage, and as noted some of the berserk damage scenarios are very implausible (Chandra will never survive to turn 3 unscathed before unleashing a doom blast unless something really weird is going on), I'd be inclined to use one of the more generous averages for the sake of throwing the cast a bone. Ajani is already not going to kill a whole lot of duelers with his single shot of Lightning Helix, so that's why I recommend the 1.9 single turn damage average above based on the more consistent damage average (which still isn't all that consistent).
Note that if you use my interps, 4.84 average loyalty & 1.9 average damage means that 1 point of power and toughness both are equivalent to about .20-.21 PCHP (by fortuitous coincidence). So Elspeth's 1/1 Soldiers do .21 PCHP damage and are KO'd by .21 PCHP (hence any MT at all owns her & her soldiers simultaneously); Garruk's tankier 3/3 Beasts require .62 PCHP of damage to take down and inflict .62 PCHP of damage themselves.
