Comet, Stellar Pup – Unfinity
Date Reviewed: November 1, 2022
Ratings:
Constructed: 2
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 3
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
They’ve made planeswalkers that do just about everything else, so I guess it was just a matter of time before we got this design! And in contrast to some of the cards we’ve reviewed recently, it’s curiously easy to imagine Comet’s effects on a non-Un-set card with the right flavor. Random effects are usually not popular in tournaments because Magic decks have a need for control and consistency (and Magic players have, on average, an even stronger one – someone should look into that). Still, you could do much worse than a random choice of Comet’s effects, and he’s also surprisingly good at defending himself, with a 2/3 chance of either blockers or damage. I don’t think that will be quite enough for tournament play, but there might be a niche for him in more casual settings. If his abilities don’t quite cut it consistently, he’s a somewhat resilient way to roll dice turn after turn, and if you can find a way to hit six every time, you can get an infinite number of loyalty counters on him. I don’t know what you’d do after that, but it seems like there should be something to do!
Constructed: 2
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 3
How powerful is a planeswalker you can’t control?
The second of the Unfinity planeswalkers, Comet actually has some intrigue instead of being a mealy-mouthed amalgamation of abilities vaguely connected to spaaaaaaace, and while Comet lacks a conventional ultimate, he can eke out solid value with all four of his results. Getting two more goes of it, getting squirrels, retrieving a card, or damaging something…all of which is balanced rather heavily by an inability to choose which of his effects you’re getting, but who cares? I should note that a lucky chain of rolls can let Comet kill an opponent in one turn (getting 6, then getting 4 or 5 in conjunction with more 6 and 1 or 2 rolls to maintain loyalty), and his wording bypasses everything but protection (since you’re not targeting anything).
Comet’s a weird one, powerful if you get lucky. And four mana is actually a good starting point, along with a nice loyalty reserve to make it harder to chase him away. That said, the luck reliance is significant, and while he’ll rarely harm you, him doing his own thing may not help advance the game state much. Powerful suite of abilities constrained by luck seems like a fitting encapsulation in all.
Constructed: 3 (might make for fun in Legacy, but planeswalkers don’t usually measure up there, and his unpredictability might be too much)
Casual: 5
Limited: 5 (unless you get chronically unlucky, he does almost everything you could want in Legacy)
Multiplayer: 2.5
Commander [EDH]: 3 (might get bonus points for being a cute little doggie nobody will want to be mean to, but that rarely works out for long after the cute doggie starts destroying things)
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