Kiora
Summary
Kiora is a merfolk planeswalker from Zendikar. She left her home when the Eldrazi showed up and started to slurpie all of zendikar's mana. Kiora wants to stop this so she is wandering the oceans of the multiverse and gathering an army of huge sea creatures. Currently she is in the oceans of Theros gathering sea monsters and merfolk for her army. Thassa, the god of the ocean, is pissed at Kiora for taking away worshippers (some of the local merfolk mistook her for an emissary or even an incarnation of Thassa herself), and the two will very likely end up slapping each others shit.
Cards
Kiora has only appeared on one Magic card so far, in the expansion Born of the Gods. Her card costs 2GU and starts with 2 loyalty. Her +1 ability prevents all damage that one opponent's card would do until your next turn, and so can be used against any creatures that would otherwise threaten her starting loyalty (which there are many of, since she has one of the lower starting loyalty scores of any planeswalker). It's also very effective against planeswalkers who can do damage repeatedly, like Chandra Nalaar or Tibalt. She also has a -1 ability that lets you draw a card and play an additional land this turn; this mimics the card Explore from Zendikar. Drawing extra cards is always good, but without additional help, you may not be able to reliably take advantage of the extra land play; when you can, it's also a significant advantage. Her ultimate costs -5 loyalty, and gives you a 9/9 Kraken creature token every turn until the game ends or time stops. Short of playing some kind of Ghostly Prison-type card or playing an Eldrazi, there are not many ways for your opponent to keep up with that in the long game (although the new version of Ajani Goldmane can slow the tokens down rather hilariously with his ultimate).
Trivia
- Kiora first appeared in the Magic video game Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. She was represented as the "player" of a sea monster-themed deck that the player could unlock. She proved popular among fans, which led to an actual planeswalker card that represented her in Born of the Gods.
- Kiora's name is similar to the Maori greeting phrase "kia ora" ("be well"). Wizards of the Coast claims that this similarity was unintentional.
- Kiora's art is the second Magic card inspired by The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
