Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
3WU
Legendary Planeswalker — Teferi
4
+1: Draw a card. At the beginning of the next end step, untap two lands.
−3: Put target nonland permanent into its owner's library third from the top.
−8: You get an emblem with "Whenever you draw a card, exile target permanent an opponent controls."

Seems like a control player's wet dream. Draw a card and ensure you have Drain mana up every turn, even the turn you cast him. Remove (temporarily or permanently) any nonland permanent until you find an answer? The 5cc means he doesn't replace Jace, but I can easily see playing 1 or 2 along The Mindsculptor. Their abilities have mad synergy.

Love this card!

There's a 5 mana planeswalker that literally just wins the game in this format if it survives a turn.

This card is good in Standard. That's it.

Tezzeret requires you to play with Vault, which isn't something you always want to do. Living that one turn can also be problematic, given there's more of an aggro presence in Vintage than in his heyday.

Teferi's card draw/untap is a +1, meaning he can survive longer even if you haven't stabilized the board, and once he dies you've still got the cards drawn. If Tezzeret dies, you've got a tapped Time Vault.

@dr-j said in [DOM] Teferi, Hero of Dominaria:

thing you always want to do. Living that one turn can also be problematic, given there's more of an aggro presence in Vintage than in his heyday.

I understand the pros and cons of Tezzeret - my point is more that Tezzeret's Cons are better than this card's Pros.

Heh, I know what they are too, and I'm saying the pro's don't always outweigh the con's, for the reasons I outlined.

In an environment with Dack, By Force and other artifact hate, plus a decent presence of creatures, Tezz-Vault might not be so hot. Teferi will get you value by at least replacing itself and possibly untapping 2 lands, even in the face of those things, prevalent in the format, which would hobble Tezzeret.

This PW looks really interesting and appears to have a lot of potential.

So I'll say that I don't love this card, and I think the spirit of what 13NoVa is saying is right, a 5 mana card needs to do a lot in vintage.

That said, I wouldn't want to undervalue the "untap two lands" part of the card. Dr. J is right that the card is VERY strong with Mana Drain, and perhaps also with instant speed draw. I bet you could do something interesting with this card if you started with 4 Mana Drain, 4 (instant speed draw spell .... Thirst for Knowledge? Gifts Ungiven?).

I like that this card doesn't have the natural tension that so many planeswalkers have where you want to build up counters but also take advantage of the best abilities. It's pretty easy to play this and +1 it until you get 8 counters (and very likely win from there). If you build a true draw-go deck, this does some things that a Jace or a Tezzeret can't.

That said I don't love the idea of a 4 Drain deck right now, so it doesn't get me worked up personally, but there are some people who are always going to play as controllish as possible and this could be a good fit for them.

The card is obviously build for Stasis/Kismet locks, so I think you are all evaluating it wrong /sarcasm /onlysorta

@protoaddct can't tell if it's better or worse at Stasis than Garruk is.

@brass-man I agree 5 mana sets a high bar, but I strongly suspect that in a dedicated control deck, Teferi reaches it. He fulfills some major control goals:

1. Reliable and efficient card drawing (no mana cost to draw cards, the ability is a +1 so more likely to stick around).

2. Flexible, efficient (pseudo) removal. Almost as good as actual removal, since he also digs for answers.

3. An almost-finisher.

Notice I had to qualify 2 and 3, but I think he's damn close on each. Now, as you alluded to, pure control might not be good right now, in which case his value goes down.

How is this remotely close to JTMS power level, even in context of certain matchups?

Sometimes I wish Jace was banned or never existed. We'd explore other walkers so much more...

@bazaarofbaghdad said in [DOM] Teferi, Hero of Dominaria:

How is this remotely close to JTMS power level, even in context of certain matchups?

I think it's pretty straightforward. If you don't care about "untap two lands," than Jace is just better. If you build a deck that does (probably by running a huge number of counterspells), then this card is probably better in matchups where you need to keep your shields up at all times (Combo, Big Blue mirrors). It ultimates faster, too, and generates more value while adding loyalty counters than Jace does.

I don't really like the directions this card pushes a deck, but I don't think it's hard to come up with a scenario where you'd rather have this card than Jace

Believe it or not, you can play Jace and Teferi in the same deck.

I did and won today's MTGO Vintage Challenge.

Kudos, @Dr-J. You were spot on with your card evaluation. Almost everything you said panned out in my testing and in the Challenge.

@ChubbyRain Congrats. I watched the stream, and I noticed 1 thing everyone kept saying, "Teferi costs 3, not 5", which was a very valid point. Its not just drain, its fluster, swords, bounce, disenchant, snapcaster or containment priest. 2 untapped lands register a lot more than counterspell now. Very good job. Part of me wants to try green splash for claims, and flash green guys and sylvan library. Sylvan plus Search seems really strong.

@chubbyrain Congrats dude! I'm going to battle it out tomorrow with Teferi, wish me luck

Whoo, what a day. Just got home, it's a 3.5 hr drive each way between North St. Paul from Ames. Took 2nd in the tournament while packing Teferi.

Will post a report and deck analysis soon.

@dr-j Hey I just noticed that you mentioned driving from North Saint Paul to Ames for Vintage. I live right in between those two points. Where do you play Vintage?

@kingleovold Hi-Score games in North St. Paul. They have a big monthly Legacy and occasionally Vintage. Where are you?

@dr-j Mason City, Iowa. Thanks for sharing!