Tibalt Winter or How Tibalt conquered Magic the Gathering

You know it’s weird. I remember a time when Tibalt was the planeswalker that everyone made fun of. Everyone agreed that Tibalt was like the worst planeswalker in existence. And that he was a joke of a Planeswalker. I mean just look at the OG Planeswalker card:

I mean he was the cheapest planeswalker but his effects are so lacking, what was the point of even running him? The only people who play Tibalt in decks were those weren’t playing seriously or just playing a Meme deck. His first ability doesn’t even increase your hand size and you don’t even get to choose what card to discard. By the time you use his second ability chances are you will only deal 2-3 damage. And while his ultimate was nice, it takes you forever just to reach his ultimate and their are better ultimate’s you can take advantage at faster speeds.

Everyone treated Tibalt as a failure not just a card but as a character, a joke, a villain to be laughed at. A villain who can’t get anything right.

For years Tibalt was made fun of as being the weakest planeswalker ever! Until War of the Spark…

And Tibalt did see some play! It was a staple in Mono-Red Aggro decks in Standard and it saw play in both the mainboard and the sideboard. As his first ability ” Your opponents can’t gain life.” was just what Mono-Red Aggro needed to survive against lifegain. I remember playing him quite often when I was playing Mono-Red Aggro in Standard. Maybe Tibalt can be useful afterall.

Now look where he is now! He’s the most powerful turn 3 or turn 2 7 cmc Planeswalker seeing play right now in Modern (move over Karn Liberated) thanks to the Cascade mechanic! And his “signature” spell Tibalt’s Trickery is warping Modern. All of his abilities are relevant. You get an emblem when he etbs that gives you card advantage if cards get exiled with Tibalt and it doesn’t even matter what the colour of that mana even is, as you can spend mana as though it were mana of any colour! You can +2 To exile the top card of each player’s library which ties into the card advantage of his etb ability. -3 Exile’s target artifact or creature, which you can immediately active when Tibalt enters the battlefield. His ultimate exiles all cards from all graveyards. Which is nice graveyard hate in addition to card advantage as explained by his etb ability. Oh and you also get three red mana. With the Cascade mechanic, it’s possible that this one card can take over the entire game similar to a certain Oko, Thief of Crowns did when it was legal.

It goes to show, that you should be careful of who you made fun of in high school because you might just regret it later in your life. This card is warping the Modern format and several other formats. This is the new Oko. Tibalt has gone from being one of the worst planeswalkers to being one of the most overpowered planeswalkers almost overnight.

So what should we do?

We have two choices: Errata it or ban it. When you play a Magic card with Cascade, you exile the top card of your library until you find a nonland card whose converted mana cost is less than the spell’s converted mana cost, then you may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Since Cascade only lets you cast the next nonland spell with lower mana cost, that means that once you find Valki, God of Lies // Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor in your library, you can then play either side of the double-faced card without paying its mana cost, so if a three-mana spell with Cascade finds Valki // Tibalt, you can cast the Tibalt side for free, way earlier than you typically could. They could errata it, by changing the cascade rule from “card” to “spell” so that mostly players will only be limited to Valki.

Until Wizards decide to take action against Tibalt (which could happen as early as this Monday with the new B&R Announcment), we could be in a Tibalt Winter. Where Tibalt is the bogeyman of several formats. Let Tibalt be a cautionary tale of who you make fun of, cause you might regret it later in your life.