In Command; or, Color Pie, Speculation, and You

If you were paying attention to San Diego Comic Con this weekend, you may have seen this image:

You read that right. Planeswalker Commanders. And not just any Planeswalkers - old ones. If you follow the Magic storyline, you might know that Teferi gave up his spark to seal one of the time rifts endangering Dominaria. But this is Teferi as a planeswalker, meaning that these cards aren't limited to the current Magic storyline. That means that any Planeswalker is on the table. Even pre-mending ones.

As of now, the only hard fact that I can find is that there is a cycle of Planeswalkers that can be Commanders. Many are saying that they will all be characters from Magic's past, but I haven't seen that confirmed anywhere. It's possible that some of the planeswalkers appearing in this product are going to be entirely new characters, but how cool would it be if we got to see new versions of old, pre-mending Planeswalkers? [Editor's Note - since writing this, MaRo clarified that some of the Planeswalkers might not be old characters.]

Well, how about a little thought experiment/speculation. Who are the remaining 4 Planeswalkers, if we pick from old Planeswalkers from Magic's past?

Before I dive into this, a short aside - I'm not a flavor expert. I reserve the right to get characterizations extremely wrong. I'm trying to just get a vague sense of how characters MIGHT be represented.

That in mind, let's get started!

White

The obvious choice is Serra. She of the angels, sanctum, and avatar. She has a legion of iconic associated cards, and it's hard to imagine that the white representative wouldn't be Serra.

But in the interest of exploring possibilities, who else could the white representative be? There don't really seem to be all that many possibilities:

Feroz is one option. Arguably, Feroz could be blue, as founder of the Wizard's School (Note that the central color is blue.) On the other hand, the main way players might know of him is Feroz's Ban. It's an artifact, but the ability is in white's slice of the color pie. Ultimately though, I'm calling Feroz a no, and classifying him as blue, meaning he gets knocked out by Teferi.

Daria is another choice. One of Urza's Nine Titans who assaulted Phyrexia, she's a little obscure, having died due to Tevash Szat's betrayal. But she is one of the few Planeswalkers that I can pin down as definitely White, mainly based on her appearance on Aura Blast. Still, not a strong choice.

Black

Leshrac is a major contender for Black's planeswalker. He's a major baddie who had a big hand in the events of Time Spiral block, not to mention a significant portion of early Magic lore.

A more obscure, but thoroughly hilarious option for Black would be Grandmother Sengir. Many early players found Sengir Vampire to be an iconic creature next to Serra Angel, and if Serra were to get a card, why not Granny S., herself? Well, lots of reasons it turns out. While Serra had a big role in the storyline of the Urza Block, Grandmother Sengir appeared in, um.... Homelands. What kind of interpretation of the all-powerful, master-of-magic pre-Mending planeswalkers was she? Well...

"She was a planeswalker when trapped in the Basalt Spire, but, in her madness, has since forgotten that she is a being of such terrible power, so neither she nor the Baron knows she can planeswalk."(via MTG Salvation Wiki)

A big hand for Homelands, everybody!

A third option is Sifa Grent, Dack Fayden (the Greatest Thief in the Multiverse)'s archnemesis, and villainess of the IDW Magic comic book. Since we just saw Dack in Conspiracy, might we see another comic character appearing? If she is going to be a card, it's most likely to happen in a supplemental set. Still, it might not be desired for her to be able to be a Commander when Dack isn't.

Lastly, Tevash Szat, the dragon planeswalker. But when we already have an awesome villainous dragon planeswalker and when the thing that this one is most known for is getting played by Urza it's possible that he might not be the best choice. But who knows, maybe black needs a chump to contrast its numerous competent plotters?

Red

Jaya Ballard makes sense here - she's a fan-favorite, subject of numerous questions as to her whereabouts, and witty flavor-text deliverer. The main strike against her is that Chandra is basically Jaya 2.0, which might make any card featuring her likely to fall within the same design space. For a one-off though, that might not be a problem, and being in a supplemental product means that we might be able to see a more Eternal format-oriented version of Chandra.

Slobad is an option. It would be the first Goblin Planeswalker, which is also something that players have been asking for. Sure, he barely had the chance to exercise his spark, but if this isn't an opportunity to check off that Goblin box, when will it be? He also would probably get to interact with artifacts, an area of Red's pie that hasn't been hit by any other of red's walkers.

There's also Jeska. As Kamahl's sister, Akroma's nemesis, one-third of Karona, and Karn's apprentice, Jeska really gets around, story-wise. (And apparently has a thing for hard K's). If we're going with sheer volume of canon touched by a character, it's hard to beat Jeska.

Green 

The top choice is probably Freyalise, the architect of the World Spell that ended the Ice Age, and deliverer of the Soul Bomb as depicted on Pernicious Deed.

Past that, there's Kristina of the Woods. She dies to Tevash Szat's treachery during Invasion block, and honestly, that's as much as I personally remember.

Glissa had the spark, but never really even had it ignite. She's technically not a Planeswalker, but who is to say that we couldn't see a What If version of her, or a retcon where she is temporarily a Planeswalker before  Slobad gains her spark.

Lord Windgrace is a possibility too. He's visually unique, being a humanoid panther, and he definitely has a fan-following, but he is not quite what I would see as mono-green. He's a noble, he has strong ties to Urborg (and not-so-strong ties to Crovax Windgrace, ex-noble of Urborg and ex-evincar of Rath). Honestly, he strikes me as more Green/Black, though there may certainly be a chronologically earlier version of him that could be mono-green.

Now, with all that said, who are my final picks for the Commander 2014 speculation?

White - Serra. There are just not many other good picks that I can think of.
Blue - Teferi. This one is a gimme.
Black - Leshrac. He's just too big of a bad to be ignored. Someone needs to lead those minions and heralds, after all. [Edit: Considering MaRo's clarification that not all the Planeswalkers are Pre-Mending, I'm amending my guess here to Sifa Grent. Dack Fayden (the Greatest Thief in the Multiverse) needs a villain.
Red - Slobad. While I am 100% sure that people will be upset about not seeing Jaya Ballard in planeswalker form, I can't see them using a character when they've made it pretty clear that Chandra is meant to be a better version of the fire-mage archetype.
Green - Freyalise. AKA, the only real green choice. As far as I'm concerned, Slobad just barely meets the requirements to be represented as a planeswalker, so Glissa definitely falls short. And Lord Windgrace just has (in my opinion) a flavor problem where his name and actual appearance/character just do not match up well at all. I hear "Lord Windgrace" and just think of some old English Lord who doesn't often leave his chair.

The main deciding factor for me on a lot of these turned out to be prominence. Sure, people like Lord Windgrace, and Minotaur fans have been begging for Sandruu, but all of the planeswalkers that made my final list have one thing in common. They all appear in card names. (Granted, Slobad is only in one card name and it's his own, but the same goes for Jeska and Jaya Ballard, so I'm sticking with that rule). As much respect as Wizards has for Magic lore, I do not expect them to go with anyone who isn't at least good enough to make it to that top line next to the mana cost.

Takeaways

One thing that struck me as I was making this list is how much The Mending did for Planeswalkers. Pre-Mending walkers were essentially all-powerful. And the problem with being all-powerful is that "being able to do anything" doesn't really fit into the color pie. In general, it is really tricky to look at an old walker and figure out where they fall color-wise, especially the more incidental characters, who might appear on cards like Divine Light, Illuminate and Planeswalker's Fury and still seem like a Green-aligned character. With The Mending (not to mention the immensely higher level of focus on creative in Modern design), Planeswalkers are more limited in scope, and thus better defined. They are only able to use certain colors of Magic, so that's the color that they are, and that's the characterization that they stick to. It's clearer and it makes each Planeswalker more distinct and iconic.

The other thing that I noticed was that there appeared to be a bit of a division in terms of Planeswalker demographics. Compare these lists - one is of the Blue Planeswalkers I came across in my research for this article and one is of non-Blue ones: (Note - this is still all based on my interpretation of the characters. These colors may not be entirely accurate.)

Blue:
Urza
Teferi
Venser
Bo Levar
Commodore Guff
Feroz

Not Blue:
Freyalise
Daria
Kristina of the Woods
Lord Windgrace
Tevash Szat
Jaya Ballard
Sandruu
Grandmother Sengir
Serra
Slobad

Keep in mind, some of these are arguable. I've heard arguments for Urza being basically any color, and as I said before, Pre-Mending planeswalkers are kind of "every color, plus ones you've never heard of." In the end, I left Urza blue mainly since he's blue when disguised as Blind Seer, and I left off Nicol Bolas, as he's pretty evenly Black/Blue/Red. I also left off Taysir, as his whole thing is being split into five versions of himself by color, so he kind of is in... both lists?

Notice anything about those lists? Hang on, let me mark that up a little:

Blue:
Urza (Human, Male)
Teferi (Human, Male)
Venser (Human, Male)
Bo Levar (Human, Male)
Commodore Guff (Human, Male)
Feroz (Human, Male)

Not Blue:
Freyalise (Human, Female)
Daria (Human, Female)
Kristina of the Woods (Human, Female)
Lord Windgrace (Panther, Male)
Tevash Szat (Dragon, Male)
Jaya Ballard (Human, Female)
Sandruu (Minotaur, Male)
Grandmother Sengir (Human....ish, Female)
Serra (Human, Female)
Slobad (Goblin, Male)

Um.

Um.

Hmm.

I.... think it's probably best to leave it at that.