Oko

## Summary

Oko is a Faerie Shapeshifter planeswalker who was born on an unknown plane. He was first introduced in Throne of Eldraine, but returned in Urza's Prophecy.

He was most recently represented in two cards: Oko, Unblinking Deception, and Oko, Magic-Eyes.

## Lore

Following the events of Throne of Eldraine and the Phyrexian Invasion of the Multiverse, Oko had disappeared and hid out for far too long. He was safe on an unknown plane, but ultimately was bored of sitting around, and thinking it was safe again, began hopping from plane to plane, and stumbled upon the unwinding and healing Dominaria.

Oko was original intrigued, and quickly enraged by the obvious abuse of power on the part of Urza and Tawnos, using their position to attempt to rewrite history with themselves as the heroes. Every anarchist bone in his body shook, and he originally sought to travel the Maze of Ith and root out more of this perversion of history, hopefully to find Ith himself and force a confession. However, the deeper he studied and travelled in the maze, another instinct overtook him. Much to his chagrin, he found himself... impressed. This deep a level of deception and trickery surpassed even the greatest of Fae, himself, and morbid curiosity got the better of him as he sought to learn from the corruption as he moved to destroy it.

## Competitive Success: Oko, Unblinking Deception

Just as his predecessor, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Oko, Unblinking Deception was a nigh-game breaking card.

Immediately off the bat, despite being a 2 mana planeswalker, he started off with 4 loyalty, and could immediately go to 5. Especially on the play, 5 loyalty to deal with on turn two was completely unrealistic, making him almost impossible to deal with.

His +1 ability synergized with this perfectly, allowing Oko's controller to consistently lock down any nonland permanent an opponent controls, most often creatures that would threaten him, but could target just about anything. This completely locked down many strategies that relied on one big creature, such as Indomitable Creativity or Reanimator decks, could easily neutralize big blockers against tramplers, destroyed any combos that relied on permanents to operate, could shut down tribal lords and keep them out of their tribe, or even, in very niche cases, shut down your own creatures with drawbacks or turn Oko himself into a creature for chip damage.

His 0 ability, while primarily meant to synergize with trading or donation effects, like his -6, also had a surprising degree of utility, being able to sacrifice permanents late game for just a little extra life boost to finish out a combo, crack foods for free or turn treasures or clues into foods. With his emblem up, it was all too easy to simply trade lands every turn and destroy your own land, completely denying your opponent of mana at the cost of... gaining 3 life.

## Competitive Success: Oko, Magic-Eyes

In a similar contrast to Oko's original incarnations, and much like his predecessor Oko, the Trickster, Oko, Magic-Eyes was considered one of the most useless planeswalkers of all time. While his ETB trigger was a fun when it did trigger, it was so incredibly niche and such a poor mana tradeoff that it was incredibly rare you actually got a good trade, and due to his X cost he would instantly die if flickered. Beyond that, his dual-X cost just didn't scale well with this abilities at all, at best turning himself into an X spell. Even his increasing loyalty was almost useless for a small food payoff, and ultimately even food decks avoided him.