Elspeth 2.0, as I'm sure she'll be called, can
wipe the board the very turn after she comes
out. Or she can make some tokens first, which
she may want to since tokens are the only things
besides lands that survive her board detonation.
When she's not making everything on the table
save herself, her progeny, and lands evaporate,
she's oscillating between producing Soldier
tokens in batches of three, and gaining you
progressively more life based on how many
creatures you have. Remember, she can put
creatures into play.
Elspeth has been my favorite planeswalker since
Shards of Alara. She has a combination of regal
confidence and inner turmoil that would make her
an interesting character even if the cards she
appeared on were never seen or played, but as it
happens, she also tends to have a profound and
immediate impact when she appears in Magic
games. This particular card is suited towards
gaining control of such a game, where the Shards
of Alara version was geared towards ending one;
and despite being slower than other cards in
white's arsenal, I expect Elspeth Tirel to be
widely adopted in Standard for her versatility.
Today's card of the day is Elspeth Tirel the
new five mana four loyalty version with three
new effects. The first is a +2 that
increases life by one for each creature you
control, which isn't horrible for a stall or
life gaining strategy, but is mainly used to set
up a second turn ultimate. The -2 is
noteworthy as it puts three 1/1 White Soldier
creature tokens into the battlefield and even
just using that ability twice is solid card
advantage from one card and five mana over two
turns. The ultimate though at the low cost
of -5 destroys all other permanents aside from
lands and tokens is extremely impressive with or
without the deck being built to take full
advantage of it. There is really nothing
bad to say about the card aside the +2 being
defensive instead of offensive, but some White
cards can make that work. That small issue
aside this is an extremely powerful card that
will see a tremendous amount of play for the
duration of her Standard rotation.
In Limited this is an absolute bomb that can
defend itself with tokens and use potentially
use the ultimate repeatedly to win the game by
itself with no support. It is a somewhat
unlikely scenario, but in the format the power
Elspeth holds is hard to match. Life gain,
battlefield advantage, and mass removal in one
affordable card is a steal and is easily the
first pick in any Booster and Sealed pool.
There are only a few answers in the format and
if defended with Flying and countermagic, both
offered by White's frequent partner Blue there
may be no way to get around an Elspeth lock.
Barring that Elspeth alone is quite powerful and
in the worst case scenario five mana for three
to six 1/1 tokens is still worthy of a first
pick. Possibly the best card in the set to
open up in a pack.
For Multiplayer her second ability producing
multiple tokens and her ultimate clearing every
player's battlefield are both excellent in the
format bumping her up to a top card.
