Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast (WotC), Core Set 2021 introduces white’s newest planeswalker — Basri Ket.
From the plane of Amonkhet, Basri Ket is a paladin who completed the Trial of Solidarity resulting in igniting his spark. Basri Ket is an aggressive, creature-centric planeswalker starting at three loyalty for three mana.
+1: Put a +1/+1 counter on up to one target creature. It gains indestructible until end of turn.
Basri Ket is a leader focused around +1/+1 counters and attacking with many creatures. The first ability grows a creature and allows it to attack without any repercussions while getting closer to his ultimate. His cycle of cards, which will be shown below, all revolve around +1/+1 counters and getting rewarded for them.
-2: Whenever one or more nontoken creatures attack this turn, create that many 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens that are tapped and attacking.
Basri Ket rallies the troops and sends in more creatures to fight along side the ones you already have battling. The -2 builds your squad, only requiring one or two creatures prior to deploying him to make a formidable team and prevent you from over-committing from your hand.
-6: You get an emblem with “At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token, then put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.”
Continuing with the theme of soldiers and +1/+1 counters, the ultimate does both, growing your team wide and tall. Though it isn’t a win-the-game-on-the-spot ultimate, it does play toward his strategy’s win condition. And if you reach the ultimate, your battlefield should have plenty of power to help close the game.
Along with Basri Ket getting previewed today, his cycle of supporting cards were as well, along with special border treatment for all five.
Basri’s Lieutenant is the other notable preview, providing a bunch of power for four mana and insurance against removal. As long as you have creatures with +1/+1 counters, mass removal will still leave you with 2/2 white Knight creatures with vigilance to keep the pressure on. Vigilance and the rare “protection from multicolored” line gives the lieutenant extra resiliency in the face of Teferi, Time Raveler, Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, and Mayhem Devil.