Possible Planeswalkers

Hey Veeky Forums. This may seem a little complex but basically I need a list of all potential races that Planeswalkers could be born into. In most settings or games that would be fairly straightforward, but WotC being the terminal fuckups they are have made it a giant pain.

I have been looking at this page for a while now but there are so many corner cases (ape's were apparently sentient in Yavimaya, who knew?) that I could do with some help.
mtg.gamepedia.com/Race

For context I'm adapting M&M for MtG roleplay but I have the rules/system down. Just need to actually hash out the stats.

A couple of odd cases to start with, could the following ever be planeswalkers:
1 Angels
2 Metathran
3 Slivers
4 Aetherborn
5 Spirit/Ghost/Spectre
6 Djinni

Pic unrelated, I just like making custom commanders

Wow that card is retarded, retard.

>This card.
But why though?

>Apocalypse with Epic
This is my kind of game

Angels and slivers can't be Planeswalkers. Angels because, like demons (and probably Djinni), they're mana constructs. I dunno about Slivers, but I do remember they can't. Spirits probably can't be walkers on account of being dead and logically would've sparked instead of, well, dying.

Why not:
"Eminence - As long as ~ is in the command zone or on the battlefield, whenever you cast a Sorcery from your hand, exile it. At the beginning of your upkeep, cast each spell exiled this way without paying its mana cost."

You don't get the initial cast but you get a freebie every upkeep. Could be pretty fun to play.

Cool, that makes sense although I know at least one of my players is going to be upset at no angels. Do you have a source on the sliver case? It makes sense to me but I'd prefer something concrete.

I made that ages ago, Eminence hadn't been invented yet, also that if anything seems more broken, particularly with low cost sorceries. Also the formatting is shitty because of a bug with the editor.

Boy if you think that one was retarded do I have some good shit for you...

Almost perfect.

"Eminence - As long as ~ is in the command zone or on the battlefield, whenever you cast a Sorcery from your hand, exile it as long as its mana cost was paid. At the beginning of your upkeep, copy each spell exiled this way. You may choose new targets for the copies."

Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never start a thread with a more interesting picture than your subject!"

Should have known better posting custom cards outside of your containment thread.

Slivers are never explicitly forbidden, but I think it was Doug Beyer said that it would be a bad idea, likely because there's a non-insignificant chance that the sliver would share the spark with all other slivers and doom the multiverse.

Aetherborn are in that Flamekin bracket of "Probably, maybe, I'm not sure." because they're artificially created, but also spontaneously created. It's pretty much GM's choice at that point.

Spirit/Ghost/Specters would need to have a spark pre-death, and then would still need some shenanigans to keep it after their death.

Otherwise the general rule of thumb is "If it's a race that the dev team has put a bunch of time into, it probably can spark unless stated otherwise."

perhaps... that thread is cancer though, I've literally had more constructive feedback here than there. They're either all too busy making bulk commons by the shitty ten-cent bucketload or it's the turboautist who keeps spamming the thread with DC superheros as cards

Aetherborn are definitely a weird one, but their abilities seem too interesting to let fall by the wayside. The clincher really is how long do they live in lore? If we're talking 6 months tops then that may not be suitable for a long-running campaign. Also do they function well when taken away from the aether that spawned them?

Spirits being a no sounds right. Could always just write it in as a template anyway.

New race question, what the fuck is up with vampires? Are they a race or an inherited affliction or what? I get that it varies from plane to plane but seriously WotC...

Slivers with planeswalking would be a special problem. If any but the original one with the spark, use the ability without the original coming alone, they lose the spark as soon as they hit the blind eternities, and then immediately are destroyed.

If the original goes, it can take the entire hive with it. But must do so for the others to make it. But very few slivers have their own self awareness. So it would be highly unlikely.

In lore Aetherborn lifespan varies a lot. I think its somewhere between 3 months on the low end and a couple years on the high end. That said, there are always options, like Gonti's Aether Heart.

Vampires are really dependent on the plane in question. On Innistrad, they're an affliction caused by a demonic bargain. On Zendikar, they're an entire species that can reproduce via afflicting it. On Ravnica, they eat minds. And who the fuck even knows that they are on Tarkir.

Ahhh! Exxila! It's not possible! Nobody's ever been able to out-cantrip her!

>And who the fuck even knows that they are on Tarkir.
Just bloodsuckers

What about an atog planeswalker? :D

ok, a couple of years is workable, and like you said, there are ways around that anyway.

I guess vampires will have to be seperated out into subraces since they have so much variety to them. That's covered most of my queries, only a few more races. Djinn, Saprolings, Treefolk and Sphinxes are the only ones I'd need some clarification on. Any thoughts?

To become a planeswalker, an entity must conform to various rules.
A) They must belong to a naturally-occuring species. Artificially created creatures - either through artifice or biomancy - are ineligible for having the planeswalker's spark. This rules out the metathran.
B) They cannot be mana constructs. This rules out angels, demons, most elementals (Lorwyn's flamekin are a specific exception noted by creative), and a host of other weird things. Possibly djinn, though that depends on the plane.
C) They must be naturally sapient. No dogs, and likely no slivers - being part of a hivemind makes being individually sapient iffy, though that also goes with D
D) They must have undergone a highly emotional event. This can be positive, but usually isn't. Slivers, assuming they manage to pass C, are likely to get tripped up here, what with being subsumed by a hive mind. Can't be a planeswalker if your spark never ignites.
E) Must not have died/had their soul seperated from their body. This rules out any kind of actual undead.
F) Cannot be Phyrexians. This is a specific rule, though it can be partially inferred from the others.

Yes, there are a few exceptions.
Sorin, while a vampire, is not undead - Innistradi vampires are wholly alive, unlike many others. It's more of a curse that's mostly upside. Zendikari vampires can't have a spark either, but that's due to their connection to the Eldrazi - they're alive as well
Ob Nixilis, similarly, is a cursed human who has the physical form of a demon, rather than having always been a demon.
Elspeth, though she died, died on Theros, where instead of just being Fucking Dead you go to the Underworld, body and all. As long as she doesn't put on that mask she made (which will split her body and soul into a Returned and an Eidolon), she'll still be a planeswalker. She's just kinda stuck there due to weirdness - most bets are on Dack Fayden going to rescue her and getting rescued by her.
Karn is bullshit.

Interesting, I never knew Ob Nix was an exception to the rule. I'd always assumed he proved it in demons' favour. Also Rule A and E are new to me, do you have a source/site where I can read more?

Also how does Ashiok interact with all these rules?

This should probably read "When ~ attacks you may pay X. If you do, exile ~ and the top X cards of your library in a face down pile, then manifest all cards exiled this way tapped and attacking.

I'm not sure if manifest even works with this at all though.

>Karn is bullshit.
aka urza obeys no rules but his own

stop posting custom cards in the thread if you want people to participate

>Also how does Ashiok interact with all these rules?
ashiok is some kind of something. pretty much everything about the dude is a mystery but he's clearly alive, sapient, and naturally occurring.

The wording on this should be "Whenever a permanent enters the battlefied, you may put an aura card with cmc 2 or less that could enchant it from your hard or graveyard onto the battlefield attached to that permanent."
Also I'd say this commander would be more fun a WUG just for some dank land enchantments.

(continued)
Karn is part of the Legacy Weapon. This includes the entire Weatherlight, Gerrard, a bunch of minor artifacts, and Urza's powerstone eyes (which contained the spark of Glacian, ancient Thran artificer, as well as Urza's own spark unless you believe the theory that he was just hijacking Glacian's the entire time himself. Somehow, in blowing Yawgmoth the fuck up, all of these things combined into one entity...which was Karn, Planeswalker. Somehow. This may have just been due to the novels being written by an outside author at the time, fuck if I know.
So, once in a forever event that involves another planeswalker's spark being given to something else.
Then, in Scars of Mirrodin block, Elspeth, Koth, and Venser discover Karn deep within Mirrodin, sparkless since the Time Spiral Crisis and thus susceptible to the glistening oil leaking from Xantcha's heartstone (aka his own damn soul). So...Venser gives Karn his own spark by teleporting his heart into Karn (obviously dying in the process)
So Karn, who is not capable of having a spark himself normally, has been given two separate sparks on two different occasions in the most bullshit ways possible.
Most of this is from digging through what's been said by the Creative Team over the years, fuck if I can find all of it.
As for Ashiok...
Ashiok is Ashiok. Ashiok's purpose is to be unexplained and uncomfortable. Presumably, Ashiok follows the rules, unless of course Ashiok is another exception in some way, shape or form. Ashiok will reveal the nature of Ashiok when Ashiok deems the time is right.

>the dude
>he's
Ashiok is an "it" firstly and secondly I'm pretty sure WotC said it's some sort of nightmare creature.

Here is Mr. Nixilis before the Chain Veil turned him into a demon.

Thanks for the wording, as for green, I'd have to find some new art but you may be right. Just didn't want him to seem too oppressive.

Manifest is shit keyword that has one narrow boring use normally. The closest they got to exciting with it was Lightform. Thanks for the updated wording though, but if Manifest is really that useless then it's as parasitic as Arcane.

Also is there a reason elementals can't be planeswalkers? I'd assume the technically count as mana constructs in the same way angels do?

>Exxila is all colors including for the purposes of color identity
>all colors including
Including what?
INCLUDING WHAT?

colour identity is not a normal part of the rules, therefore I added a specific clause acknowledging it. RAW (and assuming it was legendary) Transguild Courier would be a colourless commander, therefore it needed additional clarification.

The "including" would seem to indicate that something should follow it, like maybe "including colorless" or something (I don't know if that would work, but whatever). Right now the "including" is just hanging.

you're right, it needs a comma before including. Thanks

>Also is there a reason elementals can't be planeswalkers?
Mana constructs, they're just extensions of the land or in the case of Lorwyn, ideas given form. Only exception is Flamekin like someone stated above.

Also I'm unsure about how card memory rules work so to be clear you might want to say "When ~ etb choose a plane card from the Planechase or Planechase 2012 expansion that hasn't been chosen this game by cards named ~" or even "by effects of cards named ~"

And yeah, don't forget planechase 2012 exists. This actually looks like a fun versatile commander, although he feels like he should be 5 colour for how versatile his effects can be.

Makes sense. Great, that's just about all my queries about PW sparkdom.

As for Cazriel might be better to just specify "A plane card" to avoid clogging the card with text. Colour identity, idk the 3 colours he has are there because they have the closest association with changing the terrain, your surroundings or illusion/dreams. He does bring some very off-colour effects to the table though...

What about giving him a costed ability for some amount of generic and RB to force a roll of the planechase die?

room, he's got 8 lines of text already, there's just no space... It's not like he wouldn't work in 5c, he just doesn't feel right there to me at least from a flavour perspective (although I mostly just design for interesting deckbuilding).

You could trim it down a fair bit though with better wording and he'd be more interesting if you could actually make use of those planes more tactically by making rolls. Fuck, you could even just do "Roll the Planar die and treat the result as a CHAOS roll." for the activated ability.

Parasitic means it only works with cards in the same set/block. Manifest works with literally any card in Magic - it's the opposite of parasitic. Parasitic doesn't mean 'not that good' or 'I don't like it'
And what you want is for your opponent to not know which of the X cards is Efret, correct? That's the hardest part of figuring out how to word it.
Also, don't give it Morph 0. There should always be some sort of cost - otherwise you can just play the fuck for 3 and then immediately flip it over and haha who gives a shit about mana costs.
Also, you could likely make Cazriel something like
"When Cazriel the Dreamscaper enters the battlefield, put a plane you own from outside the game into your command zone if it doesn't share a name with a plane in exile.
When Cazriel leaves the battlefield, exile the plane.
X: Roll the planar die. Any player may use this ability any time they could cast a sorcery. If (PLANESWALK) would be rolled, instead it isn't. X is equal to the number of times this ability has been used this turn."
Not as plain-English, but proper Magicese.

Transguild Courier is all colors period, and its color identity in commander is WUBRG. It may only be used in a deck headed by a five-color commander.
If it were somehow legendary, then just from that bit of text (now a color indicator) it would allow all colors to be used.
The clarification is unnecessary.
And yet Devoid stuff can't be run in colorless via rainbow lands, because despite the text saying COLORLESS, they have the dreaded mana symbols. Between Transguild, hybrid, and Devoid, I'm not sure what the fuck the Rules Committee is thinking.

Nonsapient.
I suppose it's one of those things that they're never going to do because it requires an exact, specific definition of what the fuck the planeswalker's spark is. Slivers share their adaptations through telepathy and shapeshifting - but we know the spark isn't an organ (Yawgmoth was very thorough on that subject). Yet can it be transmitted anyways through a hivemind? Is it a function of the soul, or does it just require one? Can a sliver sculpt its own soul like it can every other part of itself? Do individual slivers even HAVE souls? Are they even individually sapient? Do Dominarian slivers count anymore, considering the bullshit that went on there, and how did they even show up on Shandalar?
A lot of these questions are things I don't think they really want to nail down hard and fast. Things they'd rather be able to play loose with.
A Queen would certainly be able to be a planeswalker, but that would require visiting the world the slivers originally come from.

That card's pretty meh, but that flavor text is on fucking point.

In order:
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Depends on where they're from

Spirits/ghosts/spectres (or any other form of undead) cannot become planeswalkers.

Wasn't Serra an angel?

I guess if you really wanted to have a sliver planeswalker, the closest thing to that would be Yisan (given what happened to him in Shandalar)

You should note that just because a being can't be born with a spark (non sentient and artificial beings as a general rule, can't be born with a spark) they can still acquire one through other means. See: Karn.

What about Karn?

> Greenish skin, pointed ears, slim waist
OP, that's a Goblin and you know it.

>For context I'm adapting M&M for MtG roleplay but I have the rules/system down. Just need to actually hash out the stats.

Are you looking to make players Planeswalkers? Because that would be an enormous mistake.

Aren't nuwalkers immune to aging?

Maro said Slivers could become planeswalkers and that if one did, the entire hive would become one.

No. That's Lilliana's entire plot line. She had to sell her soul 4 times to get eternal youth back.

Aetherborn vampires can live forever if they keep feeding right? Also was it ever explained how Gonti's heart works? Does that keep him alive indefinitely?

Also if they need Kaladesh aether to survive, then the heart could be a work around.

>E) Must not have died/had their soul seperated from their body. This rules out any kind of actual undead.

Of course, while undead can't become planeswalkers, the reverse isn't the case.

Serra was a human named after a deity who made angels (and her own artificial plane)
She may or may not have taken on the form of an angel at some point, because at the time all planeswalkers were inherent shapeshifters, but she was born human.
Fairly certain a nonsapient entity (nevermind nonsentient) can't be a planeswalker even if granted a spark - or at the very least, doing so would be pointless, since it wouldn't be capable of doing anything with said spark.

Here is the list of abilities a planeswalker currently has due solely to the fact that they are a planeswalker:
The ability to planeswalk.
The opportunities given by the above.

And that's it. It does correlate extremely strongly with having magical talent to some degree (though as far as I can tell, unless a plane is specifically nonmagey, anyone can and likely does learn some magic in Magic, even the martials) and through some contrived convenience the majority language of almost all planes of Dominia is 'common'

Liches are, apparently, the only explicit exception to the No Undead rule, and one has to ascend to lichdom post-sparking or you're boned.

Yeah, wouldn't surprise me if other forms of undeath were possible post-spark.

Ugin is called the Spirit Dragon, so he might qualify as one as well.

It's more a title and a nod to whatever-the-fuck colorless bullshit he managed to pull than an indication of creature type in Ugin's case.
He's fully flesh and blood.
After all, if he were already dead, the point of Tarkir block would've been kinda pointless, wouldn't it?

Karna was given a Spark, he never had one originally. And I think it's more that Angels and Demons can't be born with Sparks, but they can receive them or you can become an Angel or Demon if you're already a walker, like how Ob Nixilis did.

Fuck
*Karn

What about the Kami/ animist spirits like yes spirit.
Can we have a Kami planeswalker.