Pointed Discussion

A reprint no one asked for

Almost forgivable for his new art. Sadly, the stigma of Tibalt is too far gone for a shiny new makeover to save him now.

Weakest Planeswalker to date, but not completely useless. He comes out early and starts looting. In a dedicated deck, where most cards have Madness/Flashback/Retrace or other forms of recursion, he can create some serious card advantage. Discard at Random will keep him out of any form of high level play, but he's a perfectly servicable casual card.

Strictly better coat than Sorin, Lord of Innistrad's.

He's a fun card, give him a chance! His first ability is great early game when you have a crap hand of all spells or all lands. Mix in some black card draw and Madness, then go for his ultimate.

EDIT: I underestimated Tibalt's second ability, especially in this duel deck. His spells do so much damage that if Sorin can't gain enough life quickly enough, the second ability can end the game. Very impressed!

One of the best Planeswalkers ever made (Sorin, Lord of Innistrad), vs the worst ever made... seriously, I put this card in a dack especially made for him, and he was still pretty meh, WHY REPRINT THE PLANESWALKER FEWEST PEOPLE LIKE??? And in a duel deck??? People will look at the box and think "wow, Cool new Sorin, sweet! VS. ...nah, I'm not buying this".
His price tag ranges from 2$ to 6$ FFS, people don't want this guy, why do you do this Wizards, don't you want people to buy your duel deck? Why make one of your front page sellers a planeswalker nobody wants?

Sorin could break this guy over his knee. If Sorin decided to take revenge on a freshly-summoned Tibalt would kill him five times over. An actual duel between these two would last about a long as it took for Sorin to stride purposefully over to him, impale him, then planeswalk away. Why Wizards, why?

(Then again, we must be thankful to our overlords for bestowing us with many unexpected reprints. All hail our mighty but fickle masters!)

The worst card in his own deck, but he looks pretty cool.

Have him as Planeswalker for RWG deck for Innistad block, he is boss/pimp. He has a cast of Angels for supporting cast. Pimped out Angel gear. Hold him back, clear out hand first. Drop when flush with mana. Splash deck with Human Werewolves for the party, give them Angel cards for their support. Factor in some Spirit tokens. Legendary Priest bringing drumming up some support. By the time he come out he provides distraction. Maybe you through out high manna cost Angel, who cares keep handing out Angel cards. Maybe you through away a Flashback & get to burn someone. Hopefully by the time he is on scene you have set boundaries and see whats coming, so when an Angel wants to come in you can put her to work immediately. Builds up quick if opponent is out of balance. Burns on his way out the door. Puts the opponents creatues to work if needed.

I love the art, like... LOVE the art, so I feel inclined to defend him a bit.

His +1 can be fun and kinda helpful if you're down on cards and topdecking lands that you don't need. The unearth and flashback ability mixed with him allowed me to always have something to do, and that's a big plus in situations where you would only otherwise have a land to drop. His presence also adds some element of convoluted threat, as he can do some potential damage.

I do wish they'd have re-imagined him though. This art deserves a planeswalker to match. a R/B 3 or 4 drop would have been awesome, and card-shop pandemonium would have likely ensued if that was the case lol.

Tibalt, The Fiend-Blooded, ah one of my favorite thematic planeswalkers, decked out in new super awesome art and looking better then ever.

And yet, he is by far the Worst Planeswalker ever created. In no deck is he useful, and even in casual decks he has to compete with commons that are more then capable of doing his job better.

Compared to his rival Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, he is a joke. Sorin comes down and can immediately drop down an emblem AND still have loyalty kicking around. If Tibalt wants to drop his -4 to do 0-5 damage, a lousy effect in comparison, he has to spend two on random looting AND kill himself in the process. Sorin can ult immediately after three turns of getting the benefits of his token, while Tibalt has to spend 4 turns on an ability that is a downside half the time before even getting to ultimate, and Tibalt has virtually no chance of getting use out of it.
Even counting the fact that Tibalt can come out two turns earlier, his -4 comes out the same turn that Sorin can -2, assuming Tibalt kills himself, and their ults come out at the same time either way.

Even given each ability on its own right he is so thoroughly inefficient.

His -6 is completely useless, the only time when it would be useful, where your opponent has an overwhelming creature base, is exactly the situation in which Tibalt won't survive. Even if you can keep your opponents creature base low, his ability in on-board. Nobody will willing play creatures just so you can steal them. And given how much time is takes to plus him up that high anyway, a hardcast Insurrection would probably be more useful.

His -4 is finicky at best. It takes two turns to get that magic number, and even longer if you want Tibalt to survive or you are under any pressure at all. The effectiveness is also completely questionable. Even in the best situation you won't be getting much more then 5 damage, and at worst it doesn't do anything at all (But to be honest Tibalt would not survive in that situation anyway). For two mana and three turns, Tibalt has a hard time competing with Thunderous Wrath or even Searing Spear in terms of strait up damage.

And that brings us to his +1 the bread and butter planeswalker ability which is the main reason that Tibalt will even be played, and it sucks horribly. If Hymm of Tourach has ever been a better example, random discard is SIGNIFICANTLY worse then regular discard. You are being forced to play a random guessing game with your best cards, with the best case scenario being you get a draw and card and discard a card looting effect that any given blue looter gets for the same mana. Even if you go all the way to build the best possible deck for him and make any given card in your hand able to be discardable (Like some Flayer of the Hatebound Unburial Rites reanimator) You are still paying two mana and two turns for something that is generally worse then Faithless Looting, a common from the set PRIOR.

Maybe Tibalt is good because he is better then the sum of his parts. I mean many planeswalkers like Chandra The Firebrand and suffer from weak individual abilities, but make up for them by having variety and synergy with themselves. This would be the case if Tibalt HAD and synergy with himself. All of his abilities have nothing in common with each other, and are all generally worse then the commons still in standard that he derives his abilities from. It just makes me mad the Tibalt is SO bad.

Fun Fact: Tibalt wil never actually grant you card advantage. :3

Tibalt Enraged (title work in progress) RR (3 loyalty)
+1: Draw a card and lose 2 life.
-3: Target creature gains haste and gets +2/+0 until end of turn. Untap that creature.
-6: Target player cannot gain life for the rest of the game.


@Lifegainwithbite
You ideas are interesting, but the first ability seems more like black to me (draw card + loss of life).
The second one is like RR, a weaker Traitorous Instinct; the cheaper CMC pays off.
Then I find his Ultimate somehow useless. If your opponent(s) doesn't gain life, this planeswalker technically lose one ability. I am looking forward to see if you would create a new and improved abilities.

tibalt is really good in the duel decks IMO.
he is good in zombies, dredge, grixis, RDW, and suicidal r/b
i put him in my token deck on a whim, and turns out he did just what i wanted.
if you don't have 2 good options in your hand, do not play TIbalt's +1, unless you're super lucky.

Gets a 5/5 for fashion sense. Since fashion sense isn't a category considered when evaluating the playability of cards, however, he's still mediocre. He does have his uses, but they're limited even in his own deck.

Evil Matt Smith?

Tibalt: IT'S OVER SORIN! I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND! >:D

Sorin: B*tch-Please -_- You underestimate my SPARKLES :p

^and that is the Story of Duel Decks: Sorin vs. Tibalt.

Or, How Sorin Markov Murdered Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded.

(aftermath: he was charged with Second Degree Murder of a Helpless Opponent, and First Degree Bad Assery for Giant Sword Owning. The fine was two mana, not even a temporary suspension of Planeswalking for Walking without a License. :3)

(seriously, until Tibalt learns how to cast Dreadbore, this is the most Foregone Conclusion Duel Deck ever. This box should be renamed: Duel Decks: Sorin vs. Hellrider x) But I am far too entertained by the ridiculousness to be actually mad :D)

I still have no idea why their idea of supporting Tibalt was to chuck in a few Unearth creatures, then panic and just lob in some of Odyssey's Catch 22 cards.

Seriously, I run him in a Madness deck. MADNESS. RED AND BLACK LOVE THAT.

It's not even like it'd be hard to throw in some interesting rares. Cragganwick Cremator's a good example of risky power.

He rocks with Madness. He stops being awkward there and just starts bringing the pain, and can slap up any of these silly Vampires.

A lot of these comments are calling Tibalt useless and only good because of his art. Well he costs 2 to bring out so you get to start using him right away and that's good at the beginning of battles. Especially when the deck he is made for has so many effects that can be used from the graveyard. Put him out on your second turn (and odds are your opponent(s) can't hit him for another turn or so) draw your card, and with most of your cards activating in the graveyard the random card you're sending there is probably cheaper and more useful there then in your hand. You get to pretty much replace the card you want in the grave with something that you may be able to use right then. And if you keep adding cards with effects such as "deal # amount of damage to # amount of cards" (for a basic example) then you can keep him protected by picking off anything that might hit him, and if not all of them you can a) kill some but not all, b) weaken a few, or c) kill some and weaken the ones attacking. With his reputation of being (quote) "the weakest planes walker ever made" (unquote) you may have several players overlooking him because they don't see him as a major threat, thus allowing you to store the damaging cards for when needed. The beauty of this planeswalker are his own weaknesses being able to make opponents (sometimes) overlook him, and if that doesn't work you can use his effect to quickly pay for cheap flashbacks. His -4 ability should really be saved for after using his -6. Because hitting someone with the -4 will alert them that though small he can have a nasty bite sort of speak. With the right hand (that isn't too hard to get) you can take your opponents creatures, attack him directly, or destroy some if not all of his creatures. Then destroy every remaining one so they have nothing. The most useful part that I can't seem to help but see as perhaps one of the most useful effects of all planes walkers is he's cheap, small enough to overlook (at least for a while) and can be a huge help with flashbacks and other like effects while storing damage cards in your hand. In a personal opinion his +1 effect is his greatest power of the three. His rival Sorin (the one from the duel decks) costs one black, one white, and two colorless. Not as quick to get out. Sure once he comes out you can have your emblems and vampires. But Tibalt can easily hit Sorin with two 3/1 creatures with haste and a flashback cost of 2. Meaning he can easily destroy Sorin the moment he comes out. Relying on the planeswalker to fight makes them more of a target as where Tibalt is not a fighter. He is made to help the cards in your deck, and he does that very well. For a fighting planeswalker Tibalt isn't tooth and claw and fighting with him is pointless and he is the worst in that way. But smashing apart the opponent with a cheap army, that's where he has other planeswalkers beat. In the future I can see Tibalt becoming the new Jace and quickly gaining new forms and powers matching his self defense fighting style making him potentially on of the best planeswalkers ever invented. All in all with Tibalt the action happens everywhere but the field, it happens where the opponents have the hardest times defending against.

@Lwonders
TL;DR

I like the Art though. "COME AT ME BRO" pose defintely makes it more entertaining.

I say that Tibalt is a perfectly good planeswalker, considering he only costs 2 mana. If his first ability were anything better, people would complain that he's overpowered. Balancing the power of a planeswalker that is so cheap is a delicate thing, and I think that Tibalt pulls it off.

They should have made a new Tibalt. This one is beyond saving with new artwork or not. That +1 is just terrible.

@infernaldarkness: Hmm...
Tibalt Enraged RR (3 loyalty)
+1: Reveal the top card of your library. If it's red, put it into your hand.
-3: Target creature gains haste and gets +2/+0 until end of turn. Untap that creature.
-6: Target player gets an emblem with 'All damage dealt to you from red sources is doubled'.

Better? I made him completely unusable in non-mono red though and his duel deck is red-black... but I still think it would be better this way. It never makes sense to me when the duel deck doesn't correspond with the promo card's colours.
The +1 is conditional card draw (if the top card of your library is a land, you get nothing).
The -3 is still very useful.
The -6 isn't crazily overpowered but it does a hell of a lot.

For me Tibalt is a great PW. I think he could be better of course perhaps we could get lucky and get a new version of him soon. As it is though I think he does wonders for some decks. Dredge/Madness/Unearth/Scavenge...just to name a few.

If a deck is very strongly designed as a 1cmc/2cmc build Tibalt becomes Boss. Most other players do not see how effective he is until its to late.

Hey guys I accidentally put an Animate Dead and a Grave Titan in Tibalt's Deck and he suddenly started winning a lot more. B|

So I decided to go a bit further and put in Buried Alive, Sickening Dreams, Duress, and Zombie Infestation. :)p

Turns out Recouping Animate Dead is good. Who knew. Oh and I highly suggest that people who already have their Premium Decks go ahead and do everything evil you realize I'm about to tell you to do, since he is in these colors >:D

Tibalt's Fixed Deck: "Devils' Dare"

2x Tibalt, the Fiend-blooded

16 Creatures
1x Vexing Devil
1x Ashmouth Hound
2x Hellrider
1x Scourge Devil
1x Gang of Devils
2x Scorched Rusalka
1x Skirsdag Cultist
1x Corpse Connoisseur
1x Grave Titan
3x Vithian Stinger
2x Shambling Remains

20 Spells
1x Animate Dead
1x Bump in the Night
1x Buried Alive
1x Chain Lightning
3x Browbeat
2x Blightning
2x Devil's Play
1x Duress
1x Faithless Looting
1x Flame Slash
1x Recoup
1x Sickening Dreams
2x Sulfuric Vortex
1x Torrent of Souls
1x Zombie Infestation

23 Land
4x Rakdos Carnarium
11x Swamp
8x Mountain


I have been waiting for an excuse to build a "GraveBurn" deck for a while. Tibalt gave it to me. ^_^ Let's go stake that vamp and burn his corpse!!! >D
There is not very much from PDS: Lightning because I wanted to keep the flavor seeming right- but I feel like Vithian Stinger is the card that most embodies everything about this deck besides Browbeat, which is why I have 3 of each. You wanna use Lightning Bolts, V. Stinger gives Vorthos a Flavor Thumbs Up :) If you extend the deck to be more than 61 cards, you can put in a lot more from F&L. Use whatever Vithian Stinger would think is good. :)

The more I think about this card the worse I think it is. It comes down to this, when is he useful?

So if I play him early in the game, I better be sure I have a blocker for him, or some 2/2 guy is going to just end him quickly. He MAY have 3 Life at that point but do I really want to discard a card at random early in the game?

If he comes out later in the game, ok so I can better control the card I'm discarding, but his middle ability will be near useless then. He will loose -4 life for maybe 3 damage? If this was a -1 ability or a -2 ability that would be much better. Heck even a 0 wouldn't be too broken.

Ok sure his -6 ability is good, but you better be sure to kill you opponent with that cause your opponent will get the creatures back.

Terrible

I've wanted to like the idea of a two drop planeswalker for a long time, but the fact is that he's not useful. I've tried to imagine scenarios where he might be useful, envisioning him somehow working in a Snapcaster deck where you are casting burn spells for free, but the whole fun of snapcaster is the ability to burn someone twice in one turn potentially. I've wanted to imagine him in a turbo rakdos black/red deck, but he doesn't fit there considering they're so creature heavy and none of Rakdos's current spells in standard have any flashback abilities. Really, he's not worth the time and effort to put him into a deck. Go with Sorin and reap the rewards in that regard.

However, what I do like about Tibalt is that like his red planeswalker brethren Koth and Chandra, I feel like they've really captured the essence of red mana better then the other colors in planeswalker form. While Chandra is the passion and fury of fire and Koth is representative if the power and force of heat and forge, Tibalt is representative of the uncontrollable and pain inflicting nature of fire and (potentially) red mana. He may not do things as awesome as Koth or Chandra, but in the representation regard, he is a success.

@ParallaxtheRevan: "Turns out Recouping Animate Dead is good. Who knew." Nobody knew, because you can't. Might want to read the cards before you keep playing that deck.

Tibalt gets too much hate for what he's intended to do. You have to use him creatively, he's not powerful on his own but he's very risky and that makes him fun - in the same way that Ignite Memories is the most entertaining way to gamble a game on a storm count of like 2 or 3.

Why is it when I see this face with that knife I think he's saying, "You wanna know how I got these scars? You see, my father was a necroalchemist, and a fiend. One night he went off a little crazier than usual, and mommy got the scalpel to defend herself. He didn't like that. So he takes the scalpel to her, laughing while he does it, and then he sees me. He walks towards me and asks, "Why so serious?"
And he sticks the scalpel in my mouth, and says again, "Why so serious?"

"Let's put a smile on that face!"
Why is it I feel like that would be tibalt's flavor text if planeswalkers had flavor text?

I split this duel deck with a buddy of mine. He paid 25 bucks for all if it and sold me this for 5$, two intangible virtues and a lingering souls. I have yet to lose the matchup. Which is weird, since Sorin's deck appears far superior. I suppose what I have to say there is that this little guy is a LOT better than he looks on paper. Don't knock em until you play him. You will be pleasantly surprised. I cannot give a card that has single handedly saved the game for me less than 4/5. Extra points for the coat. 4.5/5

I don't know if it's just me, but this Tibalt has a troll face.

Tibalt is still my favorite planeswalker. Not because he's game altering, overpowered, or flexible, but because he's extremely subtle. Flashback decks love this cheeky bastard, and I ran one with 2x of him just to use the card nobody expects to perform. My only gripe about him is that his minus 4 could have been a minus 3 and still been far from broken.

I hate both artworks

I'm torn. I think his plus one is the problem. If it was "Draw a card, discard a card" it would be too powerful. I love his deck though. Basically a you have no right choice deck. The gf hates it.

Also has an interesting synergy with Seal of fire and Seal of Doom, because it takes those out of your hand. Convenient that it fits in the deck. Should have been included, particularly since it's black red.

Very very odd planeswalker. Comes in T2, at a very early stage for 2 red. Risky +1, powerful and abusive ult that will probably never see play, and -4 that is good early on.
Tibalt get's too much bias feedback, he is worse than Koth, but in my solid opinion better than all the Chandras. Chandra the Firebrand is essentially useless, Chandra Ablaze is expensive and isn't soulfully mono red, since it comes in too late. And, Chandra Nalar, don't even get me started.

A 2 MANA PLANESWALKER. Please, this card must've been pushed. When my friend plays it as early as T2, I know I'm fucked. He draws 3 lightning bolts and flashbacks the cards he discards. So good in decks that abuse graveyard-returns. I usually have 6 or 5 cards in my hand by T4 playing my Lifegain Selesnya deck, easy 5-6 damage. Then he keeps bombarding me with burns.

i put him in a goblin/traitors deck and he is pretty effective

What are you talking about? good art? stupid-duel-deck-ugly-art previous art was SO MUCH BETTER, there he looked like like some kind of maniac, mob head-master, now he looks like me when i cook a good steak...

As mentioned, ideal with madness and flashback. I'd also consider reanimator, although he's fairly out of color.

Real question is why this mythic slot didn't go to cavern of souls.

Ps- original art is better.

Tibalt could really be handy if paired with something like Grimoire of the Dead, filling a graveyard with all sorts of monstrosities. He does have a small background in necromancy, so says his back story.

The problem with this card isn't the limited nature of his first ability; the problem is that if you play him early on you're probably not going to be able to defend him, and if you play him later on why not just go for a more expensive but better planeswalker?

I wish it had been "Discard a card at random, then draw a card.", but even so, he's not terrible. He's just a bit difficult, which is a nice change. So many other planeswalkers aren't.

I'd love to try his deck with Liliana of the Veil, it seems like it would have interesting synergies, and anti-synergies too (ie. both discarding vs. increasing handsize for Tibalt.

Wait! I thought planeswalkers were supposed to be good.

This caracter deserves a second incarnation. Interesting backstory, badass visual design, and breaking the mould to be the first 2cc planeswalker all at the same time? Sure, no-one LIKES him, but that just means he's one of the most delightfully inexpensive planeswalkers to add to your collection and gawp over his coat!

I'd like to see a 2.0 be a) 2cc again but also 2) in colour, which may give a wider berth of effects to use for his loyalty abilities. Or maybe a edition.

http://manadeprived.com/comics/durdling-around-104-duel-decks-sorin-vs-whats-his-face/

http://manadeprived.com/comics/durdling-around-tamiyos-first-subject/

Meh planeswalker, but for 1.50 ill take it :D. I mostly like it cause of the red flavor. 3/5

Tibalt, Lord of Devils 2RR (3 loyalty)

+1: Draw a card, if its a devil, you may play it. it gains haste till the end of turn.
-X: put X 1/1 red Devil tokens on the field with "sacrifice this creature: deal 1 dmg to target creature or player."
-6: you get an emblem that says: Devil creatures you control get +2/+1 and gain first strike, haste, and 2R(tap): deal dmg equal to this creature's power to target player.

He has got to be my favourite Planeswalker to date. I mean, just visually, this guy is amazing, and put in the right deck, he can be very powerful. If anything, it'll take some of the damage, and is extremely cheap to play. You're perfect just the way you are Tibby.

First ability should read: "Draw a card and then discard a card".

Second ability is overpriced by at LEAST 1.

Third ability is great in multiplayer and okay in other formats.

Overall, Wizards could have done better with this formally human psychopath, and in accord with psychichobo, Tibalt's deck sucked. Sorin beats him senseless like a bastard infant that his mother disowned...

He lives in a house made of Pitchstone Walls

this card made a name for itself in my play group, we all call him tibalt the terrible, since he's such a terrible planeswalker. almost all of my friend own him so he's not that special, especially with his +1 ability, his ultimate is ok but assuming he can live that long and with only 2 loyalty counter he's going to be flicked when you're opponent turn came around.

This guy would be soo damn good (and expensive) without the random clause.

+1 YOLO
Also, sick combo with Bane Alley Broker - she protects the cards you want to keep from the dreaded +1! Of course, this requires that you splash two other colors just to make the card work marginally better....... BUT STILL

I run him in a very odd deck, I run a green/red deck and it's actually the best deck I've had. Haven't been able to find it since I put everything away in storage though.

Tibalt's ult is kind of contradictory with the rest of his abilities. In black/red you'll want to use removal to take care of your opponent's creatures because your creatures will generally be terrible at blocking. It stands to reason then, that if Tibalt ever hits his ult your opponent won't have any creatures out, because removal is your most efficient way of protecting him. Vice versa, if your opponent ever has enough creatures to make Tibalt's ult worth it, then he should be dead. My only explanation would be using his ult to deal the "final blow" to your opponent, either by giving all of your creatures haste or by stealing that single creature that your opponent just summoned. Stand-offs can happen, of course, but with black/red they're usually very rare, again, because your creatures are generally bad at blocking.
That's how I feel about Tibalt in the duel deck at any rate...

This guy could actually be really good in a Magus of the Moon deck!
-You have loads of dead cards so you don't care after the intial soft lock what you lose because you either casted it or it doesn't do much of anything
-Chalice @1 doesn't bother him; he's a fine T2 play
-He's red, so chuckable to Chrome Mox
-The deck makes it so it's hard for your opponent to cast stuff. This guy hits people for huge damage if they aren't casting much.

I think that that makes him worth trying. Also, if you splash black with Tibalt then he's quite good with Blood scrivener. All of the sudden his +1 becomes "Draw 2, discard 1 at random" which is an insanely strong +1.

Poor Tibalt. He was caught in that awkward design space of "if we make this guy any more powerful he'll warp formats". I'm honestly glad they didn't push the boundaries on their first 2cmc 'walker.

Then they went and made the first 1cmc walker.

Whoa - two red mana to prevent the next two or three damage that would be dealt to you? Talk about out-of-colour.

VERY fun card! VERY powerful in the right deck while still being very risky and balanced to create a truly unique Planeswalker. Madness, Unearth, Flashback, Hellbent all work well with him.

4/5

After a friend pulled one of these from a few random AVC boosters he bought, I took the fun task of explaining to him why it's bad.

"See, his abilities don't really do anything."

"He's still a Planeswalker for two mana! And Act of Treason is cool!"

"For which you have to somehow protect him while building loyalty."

"Still, he sifts your deck and the burn is nice."

"Dude. At random."

"... Yeah, he's bad."

Oh how much two words can change a card. I would gladly have paid another mana more if he had 3 loyalty and didn't discard at random, or even 4 mana if he got a bit of a workover.
I suppose he's fine if you build around him, but Planeswalkers should feel like they're seriously impacting how the game is played. For two mana, there's just not much that they could do to help him suck less. In fact, Tibalt is probably best ignored to death, watching you pitch your best spells in exchange for lands, feeding him a bit of damage every now and again to keep him from his ultimate.

Am I the only person who wants to slap that smile off of his face?

I'm not the biggest MtG story expert, but why does he appear to be wearing a suit jacket?

So far there hasn't been a deck that makes great use out of him, but I don't think he is nearly as bad as many people make him out to be.

Looting at random, while inferior to being able to choose what card to discard, is not as bad I people make it out to be. You are just as likely to discard a card you want as you are to discard you don't want. It is also very possible to influence the odds in your favor by timing your plays (e.g. using the ability before playing a land if your hand is heavy on land).

Overall, I think he is a solid card. He just needs the right home to be effective.

It is easily noted that Tibalt's +1 is situationally a hindrance as well as a boon. Even in decks that utilize the discard, graveyard, or have cheap low-cost spells that they dump easily its random nature will often have the chance of leaving the best plays of a turn unrealized. Thus, his following abilities could arguably be gained at a cheaper rate since to gain loyalty you can actually be paying a true "cost". For all his CMC speed he arguably doesn't do much for coming out so early. Unless all you need is his +1, he is actually a slow and vulnerable planeswalker when looking at his further abilities.

I find it interesting that this is the first time to my knowledge Wizards has explored the design in a planeswalker, even tentatively as here, where the planeswalker actually has a reasonable chance of punishing you for their loyalty. I wonder if they will explore this further? I could see a suicide-black demon (just one option) 'walker that has at least one ability to straight-up punish you (life loss, creature sacrifice would both be flavorful, in the latter case potentially useful as Tibalt's is) in exchange for a loyalty increase.

If they had just left out that 'at random' bit from his ability he would have been great. Heck, he could even force you to discard two cards and I wouldn't mind as much. As is, he's... decent. Can't say I'll be considering running him in any of my decks any time soon.

My friend runs this in a proliferate deck. He never activates the +1 ability -- he just proliferates the counters until he reaches the ultimate...

People (on both printings) are paying too much attention to his +1 more so than the rest of his abilities. Yes he makes you draw and discard at random - meaning you might get rid of something useful - but that's only if you're running him in a deck where it's impossible to return your spells back from the graveyard. In red/black, it's not that hard to find spells that do that.

His -4 is to me just a nifty add-on. Someone running a Spellbook/Venser's Journal/etc. draw deck? Well, sucks for them.

But his -6 is where he shines - taking control of every creature on the field is pretty damn good, especially in a multiplayer setting. I've won quite a few games by just taking everyone's field and swinging it against them because, after all, Tibalt sucks, right? Why swing at him when there's more important targets?

That being said once people realize he's pretty decent they target him pretty quick, and having just 3 loyalty counters to start with (if you use his +1 right away) means he's easy to get rid of. Still an easy 4.5/5 just because he breaks planeswalker stereotypes while managing not to break my wallet.

@Chttrbox88

"His -6 is completely useless... Nobody will willingly play creatures just so you can steal them."

You know, I kind of like it when my opponents choose not to play creatures.

Also, one thing that you can use Tibalt with is Volt Charge, which kills a creature that would've damaged him AND gives him another loyalty counter. Just an idea.

Has it occurred to no one that he was printed in a block that embraces red card advantage? (LOT of flashback burns, Dangerous Wager, Reforge the Soul...)

Run him alongside a few Gambles and a playset of Library of Lengs; you will never truly discard something that you need. Throw in some Miracles (for that Leng abuse) and some Madness and you have yourself a deck.

Best use of him I've seen is possibility storm into bolas/karn.

Tibalt the Insane
Planeswalker - Tibalt

+1 Draw three cards, then discard three cards at random.
-3 Cast an instant or sorcery card from your graveyard without paying its mana cost, chosen at random.
-6 You get an emblem which says, for the rest of the game, all your cards have Madness .

Starting loyalty 3.

So I chucked Tibalt into my Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius EDH deck because I figured he would languish in my trade binder....

Lemme tell ya... either people forget he's there or stop taking you seriously when he drops, because his "minus" abilities are great sneak attacks!

Oh you cast Praetor's Counsel? -4.

"I'll use the -6.... aaaaaand I'll one shot.... you."

"Man I forgot he was even on the battlefield!"

I don't have one, but if I did he would run in my Tymaret, the Murder King deck. Take control of all creatures, then sacrifice them all to deal damage to their original controller. It's a beautiful thing.

If it weren't for his "at random" clause, he'd be an all-star in some deck, somewhere.

Maybe.