Of all the many innovations Magic has seen over its long lifespan, planeswalkers may be the most significant. Both mechanically, as a game-changing card type, and narratively, as a device for creating strong recurring characters. Planeswalkers drove the success of the game until last year when Wizards decided it was time to cut back on them, restricting themselves to one planeswalker per set. This was a major change for the planeswalker card type in MTG, but now it looks like it could be revoked. Superfriends fans, rejoice!
Planeswalking It Back
This news comes from a Blogatog post by Mark Rosewater yesterday. Azetsu222 asked the question “Can we increase the amount of Planeswalkers again? They were the characters that got me (back) into Magic.” In response, Rosewater simply said, “We are talking about it.”
Now, before we get carried away, it’s important not to take this answer as something that it isn’t. The fact that a reversion of the one planeswalker per set change is being discussed for MTG doesn’t mean we’ll actually see it. It certainly doesn’t mean we’ll see it soon, since changes like that typically take 2-3 years to be actioned on the current development model.
That said, the fact that this is being discussed at all is significant. The shift to one planeswalker a set last year was a big move and a controversial one at that. While planeswalkers did a great job of serving as focal characters for the story, their constant involvement in everything did start to grate after a while. This was particularly true in War of the Spark, a set with 39 different planeswalkers. Looking back at the timeline, that set was almost certainly the catalyst for the wave of complaints that resulted in the one-planeswalker policy in the first place.
Oversaturation was the real issue here. Where planeswalkers were originally special, unique cards, now they were uncommons and in every pack. It didn’t help that the story leading up to War of the Spark was planeswalker-heavy, either. Combined with the declining quality of the planeswalker-led story content and novels, planeswalker became something of a dirty word. In order to address this growing issue, Wizards came up with a creative solution.
Despark Of Genius
The Phyrexian Invasion arc was the next major story arc after War of the Spark. At the conclusion of this arc, an event called The Desparkening robbed the majority of planeswalkers of their sparks, leaving them as just regular characters in the multiverse. This twist came right before Wilds of Eldraine, which was the first set to use the single planeswalker model.
This was a solid narrative justification for a major change in planeswalker distribution for MTG. Interestingly, like the greatly expanded role of planeswalkers in War of the Spark, it also proved very controversial. Many players were unhappy about how the story ended, and many more were unhappy about the reduced number of planeswalkers.
Just as it comes to light that the reversion of this change is being discussed, many players are taking to Blogatog to express their opinions on The Desparkening, and why it wasn’t a great move for the story.
“Hate it. It has ruined what made those characters special and has undermined a core concept of the brand.”
stevierh1980
The above answer came from another recent Blogatog post in which Rosewater asked players for their opinion on The Desparkening. Scanning through all of the feedback, it’s overwhelmingly negative. Considering Magic as a whole, it’s not difficult to see why. The core planeswalkers, while certainly overused, were the heart of the game’s branding for years. Suddenly removing what makes most of them special was a drastic move, to say the least.
As a response to the backlash caused by War of the Spark, The Desparkening makes sense. Based on the feedback we’re seeing now, however, it may have been an overcorrection. There are ways to feature fewer planeswalkers in sets without removing most of them from the story entirely. There are also ways to cut down without a strict limit of one ‘walker per set.
A Surprising Response
“I think part of the issue is that desparking-in-story was a bad answer to design challenges. There were many options, but a mass desparking and removal of an enjoyed card type/archetype just cuts out a problem rather than interacting with it.”
inglenew
As someone who has played Magic since 2012, seeing the negative comments on The Desparkening recently is a wild experience. For years, complaints about planeswalkers dominating the game’s story were common online. People were sick of the Gatewatch and longed for stories that didn’t involve them. Now that they’re pretty much out of the picture, however, the pendulum has swung the other way.
This makes a lot of sense when you examine the timeline. War of the Spark was five years ago now, so player sentiment on planeswalkers has had time to cool. The plan to reduce the number of planeswalkers was probably formed around then, to be enacted four years later in 2023. Now that that time has passed, players are responding negatively to the change, which in turn is prompting the discussion on a reversion we’re seeing today.
“I love the uncontrolled feedback loop of corrections delayed by years and then the reaction to the first correction causes a second correction in the opposite direction delayed by years and on and on.”
resumeemuser
This is one of the disadvantages of designing a game so far in advance: it’s tricky to adapt to the ever-changing whims of an active player base. If Wizards does decide to revert the one planeswalker change now, we won’t see the effects until MTG sets in 2027. By that point, players may have gotten used to the lower volume of ‘walkers. After all, there are some who do enjoy this new model. As icameron put it: “I’ve been enjoying how unique the design of the new planeswalkers are, it feels like now that they’re 1 per set WotC are going out of their way to make them special.”
Whichever way this ends up panning out, it’s interesting to know that such a major change is being reevaluated so soon into its relative lifespan. We may be back to Gatewatch-esque shenanigans sooner rather than later.
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