Magic: The Gathering has released the debut for the upcoming MTG set Lorwyn Eclipsed. This teaser not only featured a puppet-filled musical number from the Jim Henson Company, but also - as you'd expect - a fair few intriguing card reveals. Amidst the behold and blight mechanics, the most exciting design was a new planeswalker - a double-sided version of Oko.
While the last one from Thunder Junction wasn't too terrifying, a new Oko always creates a little tingle of fear within me, since the first appearance of this trickster was probably the most broken planeswalker ever printed. So how does this new card Oko, Lorwyn Liege compare? Will it be staring out between the bars of the MTG banlist before long, is it unplayable in any format, or does it land in the sweet spot between those two points?
Well, for a three mana planeswalker, this Oko sure is versatile. The front side has two abilities and the back has three, and each turn you can choose whether or not to flip him over for one mana, depending on your gameplan.
The card seems to want you to transform Oko often, since the blue Lorwyn Liege side has all the abilities that let the planeswalker gain loyalty, and the green Shadowmoor Scion side has the more powerful effects - each of which are minus abilities.
Oko, Lorwyn Liege seems pretty anemic. With his +2 you can permanently give a creature all creature types, which seems like an incredibly niche power outside of my Gor Muldrak salamander deck. The +1 effect meanwhile is fairly weak protection, reducing a creature's power by two until your next turn.
You'll need to keep Oko, Lorwyn Liege safe for a turn before you can flip him, as like the other transforming Lorwyn-Shadowmoor cards, the trigger only comes at the beginning of your first main phase. After that though, you get something more powerful with Oko, Shadowmoor Scion.
For starters, he has a -1 ability that provides some nice value, milling you and bringing something from the grave back to your hand. Then, there's a -3 power that creates two 3/3 Elks, a worthy reward for keeping your planeswalker on the field, and one that should make it even easier to block incoming attackers.
Finally, if you're able to keep Oko safe for multiple turns of upticking and can get to his ultimate, you get an emblem which gives creatures of your chosen type +3/+3 vigilance, and hexproof. I like how this synergizes with his +2 power, since the creatures you use that on will be guaranteed to benefit from this buff.
This is a sweet design, and it's hard to think of a better planeswalker to receive a flip card than Oko, who is all about transformation. Overall, though, this is no busted walker. I suspect this card will be too unreliable and clunky to see much play in Constructed formats - especially with Standard so over-stuffed right now.