This card was a personal challenge as a kind of thought experiment for myself. When the concept of a 0 CMC planeswalker dawned on me, I wanted to see if it was actually possible to make one that was both interesting but not overpowered. How did I do?

Um. A perfect hand gives a potential 5/5 haste... Which is pretty evil. The negative abilities are trying to set up an antisynergy where you buff opponents stuff and then kill it; but why whould you bother when you can have huge aggro?

Nice to have as a counter to another deck that is running this, though.

Back in Kamigawa Block, a perfect hand with Blazing Shoal allowed for 20 damage first turn and there's tons of other strategies in Vintage/Legacy much more efficient than this. While 5 damage first turn is nothing to scoff at, it's not broken.

All the same, I think I just had a stroke of genius. What if you could only put one +1/+1 counter on a creature at a time? Sure, it's good for weenie decks but it gives the opponent reasons to kill the weaker creatures and let the ones with +1/+1 counters live. I think it could be an interesting dilemma. What do you think?

Ok, so it's not as broken as other broken cards; it was still a zero cost "Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature every turn"; which costs with an 'artifacts only' restriction on Energy Chamber. As it is now; I think I like it. Brings out the alternate use better, though it still makes a weenie deck pretty strong. No idea how to cost this; it still seems too good to be a zero cost.

I like this. It's a Battlegrowth every turn, but only once per creature. In fact it's pretty much Vigean Hydropon with an occasional Hunter of Eyeblights moment. I don't know why the Hydropon cost 3, but it's probably too good to get it for .

So the [+1] is nifty. The ultimate is fine as an ultimate for a -cost PW: a limited Shriveling Rot has some use, but needs some setting up. The problem is the [-2].

If you really want this to be -cost, the [-2] needs to change. The [-2] is the kind of card advantage that people tend to want in a planeswalker, but it's too good to get repeatable card advantage for . (Note that Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded doesn't have any abilities that give card advantage; I suspect this is precisely because card advantage on a cheap planeswalker is just too powerful.)

Change the [-2] to something else and it would probably be playable as a Vigean Hydropon. Which is probably about all you can ask for on a -cost planeswalker.

I'm wondering what would be weak enough for the [-2]. Even "Return target creature with a +1/+1 counter on it to its owner's hand" would probably be a bit too good. Maybe if you had that at a cost of [-3], that'd work.

@Alex Maybe was too ambitious since I'm also trying to make the planeswalkers in this set flavorful to match the anime. A cost planeswalker still has a good amount of novelty even in a world with Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded being the cheapest planeswalker at 2 CMC. But this set is explicitly designed with the theme of "exile matters" so I really want to stick with the second ability exiling the creature. There's also a subtheme of "sacrifice matters" since the whole block is going to have as few mentions of "destroy" as possible. Maybe if this was a blue card I would be more willing to compromise with bounce, but as it is colorless it's going to have to be either exile or sacrifice. Which would be more appropriate do you think?

I suppose exiling a creature every three turns maybe isn't too strong. It's a bit like Lux Cannon but with a bunch more restrictions.

Hmm, I think the [+1] is too strong in an aggressive deck. For example, I could see this being played as a 4-of in Modern or Legacy Zoo because turn 1 dual + Wild Nacatl, turn 2 dual + Kyubey, the Incubator + another Wild Nacatl isn't too hard to fathom and you've got a 4/4 hitting you on turn 2 (which is much bigger than a 3/3 that can be Lightning Bolted), and by turn 3 you've got 2 4/4s and a 3-loyalty PW on the board, plus whatever else you've got in your hand. I think this would even be too strong at [0].

I don't think WotC mind occasionally printing one-drops that'll have effect in Legacy. They're about the only cards that will.

I still think it's too strong; I believe this card would get banned in many formats. Also, Planeswalkers are always designed such that you can always use one of their + abilities, even on an empty board.

While I agree that this is still too strong (compare it to Leonin Scimitar if you want. I mean, honestly, there are many decks that would be cool just getting a single +1/+1 counter on one of their creatures, and having the opponent waste a Shock or an attack step for .) I do like the synergy of the abilities, and what this card is meant to represent. I'd say something about "[+1] abilities on Planeswalkers shouldn't target your own creatures, since you won't be able to get any counters if you don't have creatures", but this card seems to be an exception to that rule, since 1 casting cost Planewalkers probably shouldn't auto-explode in 5 turns.

@jmg: It could break that rule, but from reading about MTG development, they make it so it doesn't happen partly because it creates some feel-bad situations, where YAY I've cracked my first Mythic planeswalker!! And then the first time I try to play him, I finally get him into play!!!, but then I can't legally DO anything with it. Sadface town.

That's indeed the general rule for planeswalkers. But a 1-mana planeswalker has to be an exception to many planeswalker rules, and I think the "you can always use the [+] ability" rule is a sensible one to vary in this exceptional circumstance.

I thinking making the first ability optional is sensible: it doesn't need it from power level concerns, but I think it's still a good thing that people can always activate +1 abilities, since they expect to be able to.

I was going to say the first ability may still be too good, but now I'm not sure: on turn 1, it's comparable to Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, costing an extra card initially instead of costing one land-tap a turn. It's obviously better later on when you can add counters to creatures that are already in play, but it may matter a bit less then. And having other abilities obviously makes it stronger, but then, it is mythic.

It still sits too close to Crusade for me to call fair. I can accept that Mythic is as Mythic does, though.

That being the case, Alexander, I don't think you fixed the targeting restriction as much as you thought you did. It still needs to target a creature... it just now doesn't need to give that creature a counter upon resolution. So you can target your opponent's creatures without fear, but if you play this on round one, without any creatures in play, you still wouldn't be able to activate the ability for lack of targets. Was this the intent? Does anyone have a suggestion on how that can be 'fixed'?

I want to point out that current wording means "Put 0 or 1 counters on target creature." It has the counter-adding as optional, not the targeting. You want "Put a counter on up to one target creature."

Yes, "up to". That's the ticket. You have crazy timing with me Dude. I think we hit Multiverse at the same hour every night.

Probably. I always check right before I go to bed (which can take up to an hour and a half if I find something good on here).