think of these numbers as +1 counters

elspeth comes into play with 4 +1 counters when you play it

each turn (including the turn you play elspeth), you may use one of its 3 abilities, and only once, as a sorcery.

say on turn 4, you play it. it comes into play with 4 +1 counters. you can on the same turn either remove 2 counters to make some tokens, or add 2 counters to gain some life.

when you have enough counters on it, you can also use its 3rd ability.

at any time elspeth has 0 or less counters, it goes into the graveyard.

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Originally posted by sadnis:
can anyone tell me what this card does? i can clearly read what it does but as far as the number on the bottom right the (4) and the 3x sets of numbers on the left next to each thing im totally baffled by it. im not used to these new cards and totally in the dark on how they work. thanks in advance for anyone who can explain this to me.

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Planeswalkers have been around since lorwyn. (3 and a half years ago iirc)

The gist of it is elspeth enters the battlefield with 4 loyalty counters on her (the # in the bottom right). Once each of your turns you can choose one of the three abilities she has to perform, which add or subtract loyalty counters as a cost. So for example you could remove two loyalty counters from her to put 3 tokens into play. When a planeswalker's loyalty reaches 0 they are put into the graveyard (flavorwise this represents the planeswalker basically going "eff this I'm out of here"). Planeswalkers can be attacked by creatures your opponents control, and when choosing between players when assigning damage, the controller of the damage source can choose to target your planeswalker (in other words, you can bolt them). Players can choose to redirect damage from them to a planeswalker they control.

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Originally posted by Volcanon:
You'll learn to hate planeswalkers by the way. WOTC has a very hard to balancing them, so they are either hard brown turds or more unfair than Morphling under the old rules in a format with many cheap hard counters.

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Mostly just Jace, the Wallet Emptier.

__________________
Joz - can we ban Leshrac for not fixing the Chrome PM issue?

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Originally posted by Volcanon:
You'll learn to hate planeswalkers by the way. WOTC has a very hard to balancing them, so they are either hard brown turds or more unfair than Morphling under the old rules in a format with many cheap hard counters.

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The same could be said for anything new. Hey, lets make Moxen and blue spells! Hey, lets make equipment! etc etc.

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Originally posted by joz:
Mostly just Jace, the Wallet Emptier.

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Both Elspeth-Knight Errant and Gideon Jura are pretty nuts(and at one point were pretty damn expensive). Also Ajani Vengeant was pretty dumb, too. Those are all constructed worthy ones. If you are lucky to open one in a sealed or draft format it's the stupidiest thing ever, and that is 90% of them(not just the ones people keep mentioning).

Jace, The Mind Sculptor is really the only one to hold a death grip on people's wallets. Eventually they have all droppd in price. Like I said though the ones that haven't been hard on the wallet are still damn hard to beat in draft.

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Originally posted by thror:
That being said, just like every card type ever, planeswalkers vary in power level. Some are fairly bad (both chandras, sorin), some are fine (both ajanis, koth, baby jace, garruk), and ONE is a little insane (Big Jace).

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Originally posted by daner:
Both Elspeth-Knight Errant and Gideon Jura are pretty nuts(and at one point were pretty damn expensive). Also Ajani Vengeant was pretty dumb, too. Those are all constructed worthy ones. If you are lucky to open one in a sealed or draft format it's the stupidiest thing ever, and that is 90% of them(not just the ones people keep mentioning).

Jace, The Mind Sculptor is really the only one to hold a death grip on people's wallets. Eventually they have all droppd in price. Like I said though the ones that haven't been hard on the wallet are still damn hard to beat in draft.

I hope you mean for constructed purposes only. Ever play with or against Sorin in Zendikar limited? The worst planeswalker they ever made is Nissa Revane, and she was still annoying sometimes in limited.

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Originally posted by Numotflame96:
actually i think chandra ablaze is worse.... at least nissa can work in elf decks. chandra deosn't work in control, aggro or combo or anything. Its really not even good in limited...

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Yeah, Chandra Ablaze is like Koth in that both ask "are you playing mono-red? No? Then I'm damn near useless". The difference is that Koth is amazing in monored, while Chandra is only slightly less useless.

Nissa has a similar problem, but she's even more restrictive - no elves, no purpose.

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Originally posted by daner:
Both Elspeth-Knight Errant and Gideon Jura are pretty nuts(and at one point were pretty damn expensive). Also Ajani Vengeant was pretty dumb, too. Those are all constructed worthy ones. If you are lucky to open one in a sealed or draft format it's the stupidiest thing ever, and that is 90% of them(not just the ones people keep mentioning).

Jace, The Mind Sculptor is really the only one to hold a death grip on people's wallets. Eventually they have all droppd in price. Like I said though the ones that haven't been hard on the wallet are still damn hard to beat in draft.

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Originally posted by CoupDeGrace:
Venser is an interactive planswalker. Nicol Bolas can be considered as nuts if not because of casting cost IMHO.

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