Reconciling the Limits of Play and Flavors of Power

As players of this great game, we pay cost and make choices based on cards that contain ways to modify the rules and state of the game so we can advance our plan to win the game. As Planeswalkers, we are casting magic and spells of all magnitude to survive and vanquish our opponents. I’m going to talk through some thoughts I’ve had on flavor and attempt to craft a flavorful view that will incorporate some of the rules and ideas that often float around in our game play.

There are plenty of articles and thoughts about how Planeswalkers use land and draw on mana, so I’m not going to talk much about that. It suffices to say that Planeswalkers make bonds with lands with which they are familiar and can draw the power of those lands to aid in their spellcraft. In general, an open field is an open field, regardless of the Plane you are on, but there are occasionally aspects of some lands that have secondary effects. How Khalni Garden comes with a Plant creature and how Academy Ruins lets you salvage artifacts are questions that I believe are answered by drawing a parallel between these special lands and the way I imagine spells work, in that they are events and unique patterns .

We see cards in Magic’s history that give us a strong starting point for considering the intended way for us to think about the flavor of spells and casting. Those cards that affect our or our opponent’s unplayed cards and hands often refer to the mental domain. Memory Sluice, Thoughtseize, Ancestral Recall, Mind Spring, ect. From this, we can assume that the spells are things that Planeswalkers hold in their mind, and that they come from memory. The first point seems to be a given, but the second point is interesting for the flavor of our spells and how Planeswalkers must acquire and use these spells.

The various spell types we have to consider are Instants and Sorceries, which can be grouped together for our purposes, Enchantments, Artifacts, and Creatures. Now, I do not include Planeswalkers on this list because they do not function the same as these other spell types flavorfully nor literally. I’ll address them a bit below. For now, let’s begin with the permanents.

Stepping into the mental shoes of a Planeswalker, when we are on a plane we are surrounded by matter. Real, tangible, exigent things with which we can interact. These things have an on-going nature, persisting over time, even if the nature of the thing makes that time short, they have a duration of existence. We can look at, touch, and smell the goblin, old books, and aura of magic sitting in the room with us.

Now, I believe that it is through the Planeswalkers memory that spells are ‘drawn,’ and as such, the best way to learn how to put such spells into memory is through examination. In this case, we can examine the goblin, taking in its form, behavior, and capabilities. This would not be enough however. We can remember details about the goblin when we are on another plane, but that will not suffice if we have a beast bearing down on us. What we need to do as we examine the goblin, is examine the flow of mana that comprises his existence.

I believe Planeswalkers are creatures of magic. They can literally see the threads and flows of mana that make up a creature or thing. If they study and internalize the memory of a creature and its make up, they can use mana in another place to create that creature again from their memory. Now, this is at odds with the idea of summoning a creature, but I think it fits much better when you consider applying this theory to other permanents, sorceries, and instants. Instead of yanking a Raging Goblin across the Blind Eternities to us, we are remembering what makes a Raging Goblin in way of the organization and shape of his mana, and forming the mana we have to give that memory and mana life. We are essentially cloning him using his mana DNA.

This same thing applies to artifacts and enchantments. A Planeswalker finds something useful and while they might be able to pocket an artifact, they can also just create the thing once they understand it in the place where it is required.

If we understand the spellcraft of permanents as replicating naturally occurring mana patterns that a Planeswalker encounters, then this also can lend us a hand in understanding the spellcraft of Sorceries and Instants. Sorceries and Instants, in the game, have a variety of different flavors to them but they tend to always be events and occurrences.

Disaster Radius, for example, has the flavor to me of either a massive attack from one of the Eldrazi Legends, or perhaps the fall out from one such as Emrakul falling under the force of an attack. The art, the effect and the cost all give me these as possible flavors for the card. As such, I can imagine that the Planeswalker who watches such an event could, in the moment or in the replay of memory, remember and study the activity of the mana that flowed around the event. As such, when faced with a swarm of beasts coming for him, he can shape and direct the mana, channel the memory of a powerful creature that he has the pattern at the ready to create a replay of the original event.

Now, understanding how spells work, I want to talk about a flavorizing of the deck, card limits, and the Legend rule.

If the world around the Planeswalker is one of mana patterns, we could quite easily fill amind with hundreds of patterns, spells, some of which would be great and some of which would not be the most efficient and effective use of effort. Such is true for the game, as we have thousands of cards available, hundreds in a smaller format like Standard, and not all of them are good in practical use. A Planeswalker however can control their preparation for action, pruning down thoughts and actions that would be less useful and readying themselves for those that are more likely to aid them in combat. A Planeswalker is a mental and magical martial artists, and they can hone their readied memories much the same as a Grand Master can select stances and styles to fit the opponent and environment at hand.

This gives us a flavorful way to understand the need to create concise decks using few powerful and efficient cards as a general rule. If the Planeswalker needs a Goblin, but cannot get all of the irrelevant events he’s seen out of his head, he likely not last very long. Another aspect of deck building is the four copy limit, which will touch on another flavorful concept.

We can include up to four copies of any one card into our decks, but this does not mean the Planeswalker must examine four Raging Goblins specifically to have a full preparation of them in his mind. Rather, I view each copy of a card as increased reliance and mastery of the memory of that mana pattern. A Planeswalker who has deeply studied a Knight of the Reliquary is the one most capable to bring that memory to life. This is reflected in our increased ability to draw the card when running four copies. Of course, there is only so much mastery that can be accomplished, and when understanding and reliance are at their fullest nothing more can be achieved.

This explains why we are limited to four copies, save the pocket cases of the Relentless Rats and Limited where you can have more. These exceptions can be explained first as a nature of the mana pattern of the rats and their tendency to swarm, and for Limited, in a fledgling environment where resources are scarce, the Planeswalker is sometimes forced to rely heavily on what he has managed to grasp, bending the rule of a typical orderly mind with the desperateness of making do in tough situations.

Now, as for the cases of the Legendary, we can understand that the point of legendary-ness is that it expresses uniqueness. There may have been dozens of Boggart Ram-gang running around Shadowmoor, all of them having the same typical pattern of mana. However, there was only one Wort, the Raidmother, and her abilities on the plane where unique to her alone. There was a special quirk in her pattern that expressed her uniqueness. While her having a pattern that the Planeswalker can study allows him to reconstruct her from mana and memory on a far removed plane, that specificness in the pattern keeps another Wort from being able to exist there too. In fact, if two Worts attempt to exist in the same place at once, the quirk, the uniqueness of both patterns unravels and takes the rest of the pattern with it.

Planeswalker cards pose a unique flavor translation issue, but I believe that what they represent is an alliance and a contract to enforce that alliance. Planeswalkers are too complex and unique, due to the spark, to be simple spells. Their mana pattern cannot just be recreated. Instead, we can conceptualize the Planeswalkers as having met and agreeing to a contractual calling for assistance. The spell that is cast is the call that gets sent across the Blind Eternities informing the Planeswalker that his obligation is being called upon. The Planeswalker is capable of transversing the Blind Eternities, so we can actually read this as a summoning of a single very unique creature.

The Planeswalker rule is just a little bit different from the Legend rule conceptually and functionally. The Planeswalker can be called to fulfill the role agreed based on the call that went out, thus having Ajani Vengant, the Warrior Mage, and Ajani Goldmane, the Soldierly General. He is the same person, but his roles are different. As such, the uniqueness applies to both forms. This matters because if he has a contract called by someone else who is involved in hostilities, he must leave the battle, as he becomes incapable of fulfilling both roles for both allies at once.

Finally, the only thing left to consider is the graveyard. Here the discarded and used thoughts go. I do have a hard time conceptualizing the graveyard in a flavorful way for anything other than played and subsequently destroyed creatures. I suppose that it is more a record of what has passed, as I know I have used it that way before in playing when I need to check my record keeping. Most of the memories that have been remembered, served their purpose and subsequently forgotten as the Planeswalker turns his attention to the next matter.

I’ll be honest in saying I struggle to add the Graveyard element to our flavorful exercise. Perhaps there are some Vorthos friends out there whom have given this some more thought and could help me out? Give me your thoughts in the comments! I’d love to hear other imaginings of what the Planeswalker’s experience must be and how we can reconcile that with our experiences.

Tags: Flavor, magic the gathering, Rules, vorthos