For a long time, we mainly saw Raymond
Swanland's art on cards from Jund, and from
those parts of other planes that had a similar
aesthetic of fire, lava, and wind. Recently, we
have started getting his art in shots like this,
and I like it. Nissa looks like a superhero
here, and I intend that as a compliment.
It's easy to forget that Nissa's first depiction
on a card was heavily slanted towards Elf
tribal. In recent sets, she has done a great job
of representing a better range of the things
green is about, and this version of her is
highly appealing (I hope my assessment isn't too
colored by the art!). Her -2 ability can act as
a much cheaper Overrun (much like Battle for
Zendikar's version of Gideon), and there is even
something to be said for clogging your side of
the table with tokens while waiting for the huge
lifeswing and card drawing that will probably
give you enough resources to win the game. Where
the first generations of planeswalker cards
tended to be slanted towards controlling decks,
recent sets have given us a golden age of
planeswalkers for aggro decks (or ones who are
basically one-person aggro decks, like Battle
for Zendikar's Gideon), and I suspect Nissa will
be one of the successful members of that
generation.
Today's card of the day is Nissa, Voice of
Zendikar which is a three mana Green
planeswalker with three loyalty. The +1
just puts a 0/1 token into play which is quite
weak when compared to other planeswalkers and
requires support to be of any real value outside
of stalling and building to the -7 ability.
The -2 adds +1/+1 counters to each creature you
control which helps the 0/1 tokens and any swarm
force and is likely the primary reason to run
this particular planeswalker. The -7 gives
life and card draws equal to the number of lands
you control which doesn't have much synergy with
the other abilities and is more for a land
acceleration build as a finisher by providing
cards to cast.
Overall a card that could work in a few
different builds, though may just see play for
the possibility of two -2 uses.
In a Limited format the +1 and -2 can provide
chump blocking and power ups for threats and
slowly force the opponent into a corner with
minimal support if they can't maintain enough
pressure. Like most planeswalkers this is
a first pick in Booster, though she doesn't
quite offer the same self-contained threat of
her peers. In Sealed the double Green can
delay when she sees play, though a later
appearance can add a little more value to the -2
being used before the +1. Still worth
building around, but benefits greatly from
support and a better board position.
