Hey there! I’m Scott from the top four of last year’s Great Designer Search 3. Welcome back to the third of three articles on potential planeswalker mistakes in War of the Spark.
Last time we talked about Narset, Parter of Veils, and this time we’ll be talking about everyone’s favorite robot father:
#3. Karn, the Great Creator
The only thing this guy “creates” is pain.
In my opinion, Karn is the worst offender of the three planeswalkers. All three of his abilities have issues. Let’s go over them one by one.
The Static Ability
Activated abilities of artifacts your opponents control can’t be activated.
Similar to Teferi and Narset’s passives, Karn’s passive is another that either does nothing or completely shuts down the opponent’s deck.
If your opponent has no artifacts, then it’s a blank. If their deck is full of artifacts, then they’re essentially dead. Even if they only have a few artifacts, the result can still be devastating.
We talked at length in the Narset article about why having such a potentially game-ending static ability is miserable, especially with card advantage tacked onto it, but there’s something else that makes this one even worse: it doesn’t make sense with Karn.
At least Teferi and Narset’s overpowered static abilities made sense with their characters. Teferi’s was a callback to his older creature card, and Narset has a history of stopping the opponent from doing things. But Karn… shuts off artifacts? That makes him a “Great Creator?”
It’s just no fun for anyone, mechanically or flavorfully.
The Plus Ability
+1: Until your next turn, up to one target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its converted mana cost.
This ability starts out fine… but then it goes sour. I thought we were done with weird targeting shenanigans on planeswalkers after Teferi, Hero of Dominaria has been tucking himself away for the past year. I suppose not though, since there’s no reason this ability should be able to target your opponent’s artifacts.
I know that the original Karn card could animate opponents’ artifacts, but that was back in Urza’s Saga, when lords and slivers still granted their bonuses to all creatures on the battlefield, not just yours. Card design has evolved a lot since then.
The only reason you would ever animate an opponent’s artifact is to kill it. Is that what this card wants to do? Bring Treasure Maps and Cranial Platings to life just so we can Lightning Strike or Path to Exile them?
Karn’s bloodlust could not be contained by merely shutting down Mox Opal.
The Minus Ability
−2: You may choose an artifact card you own from outside the game or in exile, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
And now we get to the big one. Let’s just cut to the chase: tutoring not only from outside the game, but from exile too, is insane.
Back during the Great Designer Search 3, I made two cards that did something similar. Let’s take a look at them, along with the responses from the judges.
First up is Whispering Wisps, which does something similar to the exile part of Karn’s ability:
Mark Rosewater: My one complaint is that the card it’s playing needs to be exiled by this card. Cards can’t return any card from exile. (Battle for Zendikar was a special exception, and those exiled cards then went to the graveyard.) Cards can bring back things they exiled (we often use exile as a holding area for effects), so this spell can get back cards it exiled. I understand you were trying to break a rule. This is just a dangerous rule to break as it undoes our ability to build in safeguards to spells.
Whispering Wisps is a bad card. I posted in an article afterward on Goblin Artisans about how I regretted submitting it and that hopefully nothing like it would ever be printed. And yet here we have Karn, able to bring back any artifact from exile.
Turning the exile zone into a “second graveyard” is a very dangerous path, one that I dipped my toe into and immediately regretted. Seeing Karn do it too is troubling.
Next up is my Wizened Arbiter, which does something similar to the outside the game part of Karn’s ability:
Erik Lauer: This is so far off on a power level, that I am very distracted from how to fix it. I might restrict the wish in an additional way. I have an idea of only white cards with converted mana cost 2 or less, but I am not sure white can do that. I would then need to take this to the Council of Colors.
Mark Rosewater: As Erik and Melissa pointed out, white can’t “wish” (get from exile) any card. It can get anything it could tutor for—artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers (and the occasional small or white-themed creature).
Again, Wizened Arbiter is a bad card. It’s too strong. White cards shouldn’t tutor for other white cards.
…so then why can Karn, as a colorless card, tutor for artifacts? Not to mention it puts it into your hand, not just exchanging it like Wizened Arbiter, giving you card advantage.
There are only a few artifact cards that can tutor for other artifacts (or any card/permanent):
Kuldotha Forgemaster and Tamiyo’s Journal, which both require a hefty sacrifice…
…and Planar Bridge and Planar Portal, which both require at least a 12 mana investment over two turns.
Yet Karn just comes down on four mana and does it easily, then does it again next turn. And you don’t even have to have the risk of putting the silver bullet search target in your deck, just keep it safely tucked away in the sideboard!
These combos with Karn would be a lot less scary if
players had to have them as dead draws in their deck.
So, with all that said about Karn, what can we do to fix him?
We don’t know exactly what Play Design’s intent was with this card, perhaps there’s going to be some artifact set coming that needs a hoser. But for now we’re just going to assume that a fun, flavorful planeswalker was their goal.
With that in mind, here’s some different Karn designs:
#1. Karn, the Artifact Army
This Karn keeps the same plus ability, while tweaking it to only affect your own artifacts. It also boosts your artifact creatures, not only making for a fun build-around lord, but also making it so you can animate your zero-cost artifacts and get in for one damage too.
The minus ability is a callback to Thran Dynamo, giving you a big boost if you have a lot of colorless cards in your deck, similar to Koth of the Hammer in mono red.
#2. Karn, the Great Historian
This takes Karn in a whole new direction. Being colorless, it makes sense for Karn to be a card that glues the other planeswalkers in the set together. You can build a superfriends deck in whatever colors you want, then add Karn into it to to protect them, enhance them, and find them.
This Karn does that. It protects other planeswalkers from kill spells (though not combat/direct damage), boosts up their loyalty, and digs for more friends.
Using historic instead of just “planeswalker” may feel a bit odd since it’s not a mechanic in War of the Spark, but with Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge having affinity on it, it feels like Wizards is trying out using mechanics on cards not otherwise in the set. Historic here is not only flavorful, but it’s also a fun sendoff to the Dominaria sagas before they rotate out of standard.
And, if Karn’s historic power is too good with legendary creatures, then changing it to work with just planeswalkers would be fine too.
#3. Karn, the Fun Creator
Now we’re getting a little crazy!
I like the idea of Karn being a pacifist fighter, not killing enemies, but rather just “creating” them into something else.
It only targets your opponent’s stuff to make sure something different happens every time you use it, to reduce miserable combo play patterns. It doesn’t exile planeswalkers because getting a fresh planeswalker every turn, even if it’s a 1/1, would still be pretty insane.
#4. Karn, the Statue Collector
And now we’re officially going off the walls. This Karn takes the activated ability of the original and just goes full March of the Machines with it, turning Karn into a fun build around.
The plus ability not only turns your own permanents into artifacts that subsequently become creatures, it can also turn your opponent’s creatures into “statues” that can no longer attack/block. Statues which can then be stolen, and turned back into creatures on your side thanks to Karn’s static ability.
Again, this version of Karn plays into his pacifist nature, shutting down the opponent’s attack not by killing creatures, but by transforming them and raising an artifact army on your side.
Rather than griefing your opponent, all these Karns are based around allowing you to do cool things.
Cool things that aren’t just, you know,
your opponents can’t cast spells for the rest of the game.
And that’s it for the planeswalker mistakes in War of the Spark! We’ll be back next time with a look at Modern Horizons, where we ponder what could have been.