Our series on Planeswalkers in Grand Melee has covered the 31 planeswalkers printed to date. That’s everything from Ajani Goldmane to Liliana of the Dark Realms.

Now is a good to to take stock of what we have, and look at the best overall planeswalkers. In keeping with the theme of the series, the focus of this list is on the multiplayer stregnth of the planeswalkers.

1. Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Elspeth is like having a deck in one card. She creatures creature tokens, gives those tokens a power boost and flying, all while building up to her ultimate ability. This ability makes your artifacts, creatures, enchantments and lands indestructible for the rest of the game. At this point your opponents might as well give up. Unless they have Karn Liberated.

2. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. Expensive to cast but well worth the effort of doing so. No card on the table is safe from Bolas, either being destroyed or taken over. If your opponents don’t stop this dragon arch-villian the game is yours.

3. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. Sorin creates an army of vampires with lifelink, a useful ability in multiplayer games where your starting 20 life might not be enough. He can boost those vampires with his emblem, and finally take key permanents from your opponents to give you a crushing advantage.

4. Karn Liberated. The first and to date only colourless planeswalker. His ability of exiling cards and permanents in very good, and his master stroke of re-starting the game allows you to pull the plug if someone else has pulled too far ahead to catch. In a multiplayer game only the players left at the table when you re-start will be involved in the new game, which should make it easier for you the second time around.

5. This choice was harder. Only four of the 31 planeswalkers were given the top rating of Awesome. Thirteen more were given the second-best rating of Strong. Of those, I chose Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. This blue planeswalker brings great versatility with her first two abilities, which can keep attackers at bay and draw you extra cards. Her third ability should see you win the game within a couple of turns by casting a key spell or two over and over again.

These are my picks for the top 5 planeswalkers. In the 2012 melee league, four of these have featured in winning decks in one or more rounds, with Tamiyo yet to make an impact. I expect that will change soon. One things I notice about my list is the complete lack of green mana in any of these costs. In one sense that’s a little misleading, as planeswalkers such as Sarkhan Vol or any of the three Garruks are worthy inclusions in your deck. However the five above provide unprecedented power options.