W3W is obviously bad, and the card design technique proposed here doesn't have much more in common with it than that it's about describing something by three things.

That said, a technique where you choose three aspects of a character and design around them is a perfectly valid exercise to inspire top-down design.

It's a concrete way to restrict yourself in a way that breeds creativity. It's fine at that. I certainly have broken down top-down designs similar to this.

W3W is heavily criticized for being bad at what it's for, and also you seem to have fundamentally misunderstood what that is

What 3 Words (W3W)

W3W (What 3 Words) is an official method that uses three keywords to uniquely identify any 3m by 3m parcel of land on earth.

One may use a similar system to help create unique cards. Since Planeswalkers typically have three abilities, a card creator may use three words to describe a PW, then create abilities from those words. Obviously a PW could be identified with over three keywords, thereby creating many variations of that PW.

I have used this method even before discovering W3W. This makes it easy to meld a card's flavor with mechanics. Especially converting real life people onto cards.

For example, regarding my favorite Korean idol, I created many cards using such sets of keywords for the same person:

1. Refined. Dedicated. Stimulating.
2. Dawn. Rise. Ever.
3. Reliable. Initiative. Clearheaded.
4. High-class. Award-winning. Non-stop.
5. Queen of Popping, Locking, & Hip Swaying.

Etc.

After submitting the keywords, hone in on making abilities appropriate for that card's colors. For simplicity, each keyword would match one ability.

Ex. For a white PW:

• Dawn = untap all friendly creatures.
• Rise = friendly creatures gain flying.
• Ever = resurrect creature or planeswalker card from graveyard or exile.

What's up, this weekend is fastidious in favor of me, as this occasion i am reading this wonderful informative post here at my home.

FIRE and NWO are not mutually exclusive. Both co-exist today.

Modern design sensibility is based around FIRE: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/card-preview/fire-it-2019-06-21

I acknowledge that there are benefits of NWO. Being said, I have generally found (large) sets from this decade to be more engaging than ones from the 2010s. I haven't followed how much core design philosophy has changed over the past decade and what factor NWO played in that design philosophy.

From my perspective dual land cycles that exist purely for mana generation don't belong at rare. I'm a big fan of the dedicated land slot that may be not just a basic land but also a common dual land.

With that logic theses cards also don't eat into common slots.

Taplands/Gainlands are my default. I could see SNC taplands with boardcycling easily.

There is value in some completed cycles we're getting recently e. g. Viridescent Bog. There's also value in just taplands with nonbasic land types.

I don't know if WotC have read this thread, or someone passed it along. Certainly some suggestions here have been accepted into official cards.

• Use of 'this' instead of card names.
• Shorten 'enters the battlefield' to merely 'enters'.
• 'During your turn' instead of 'as long as it's your turn'

More and more lands, even duals, now printed with land types, including basic types and new land types.