I haven’t played since before Wizards started pushing Commander, at that time called EDH. I felt the Standard Format was a perfect setup to keep the game fresh and innovative while still making money, and the Legacy Format was perfect for the people who had cards that are no longer in Standard. I think the Commander Format killed a perfect system, and Wizards/Hasbro are just trying everything to make money and keep the game mostly unplayable with the licensed tie-ins.
Agreed. They sort of made sense as an experiment in Lorwyn, but planeswalkers became the face of the game and had to be shoehorned into every set since then. They’re bad game design as all the rules and strategy need to be adjusted just to make them work, and they still take over games on their own.
The real shark jump was when they made a set with dozens of planeswalkers in it. Way to take your worst-designed cards and just shove a set full of them.
The idea for planewalkers is just crazy.
Its like its designed to be annoying, in your face, and fundamentally change how every game is played.
Originally, they were treated as players. A damage spell that could hit a player could be redirected on resolution to damage their planeswalker instead. This led to some pretty dumb situations when rather than declare a spell targeting the planeswalker, you would declare it targeting the player, essentially tricking them into thinking the planeswalker was safe and allowing a spell to resolve, only to redirect the damage after the spell is allowed.
Creatures having to be declared attacking a planeswalker specifically made the game tedious as well.
The fact that you have a game-breaking permanent on the board that you have to turn your attention to immediately even if you’re way ahead in the game, it just feels worse than stabilizing the board and turning the tide. And then they have to keep making new, more powerful ones to get people to buy new product.