The Unwell Kingdom has its fair share of monsters, each calling back to different battles from our D&D campaign. When designing the set, I chose to include a cycle of these creatures in each color and as commons, to offer a reliable way to top out your mana curve in any deck.

Magic is a game about managing resources and getting the most out of every pip of mana. The higher a card’s mana cost, the more likely it is to pack a punch, but the higher the risk of dying before you ever get to cast it, whether that’s because you missed a few land drops, or your opponent was aggressive enough to steal the win from under you! But in limited formats, where decks don’t get to be as streamlined as constructed, sometimes a big body with a big price tag is the perfect way to swing a match in your favor.

So what should these cards look like? How can their mechanics, stats, and flavor be adjusted to match each color? What sort of synergies should they provide, or is it better for them to be generic stat piles? Should some be better than others? A closer look at each of them will reveal our answers…

White – Charmed Sentinel

First, we have white’s take on this cycle. The Charmed Sentinel has a decent (if a bit unimpressive) 4/4 body, but its real value comes from making your creatures evasive. White decks often find themselves with wide boards of smaller creatures. Sometimes that’s enough for them to flood through, but with the Charmed Sentinel, they can fly right over the top of most enemies and worry less about blockers.

In addition, White cards in this set have a heavy “enchantments matter” sub-theme. As an enchantment creature, the Charmed Sentinel is able to take advantage of those extra synergies and soar to even greater heights!

Blue – Unbound Basilisk

Blue decks tend to look for different strategies than straightforward aggression, instead finding other ways to swing tempo in their favor. I wanted Unbound Basilisk to be specifically powerful against midrange threats—bulky attackers that would otherwise muscle through now have to think twice or risk being locked down with a stun counter, and the Basilisk’s high toughness makes it likely to survive!

Then, thanks to vigilance, it’s free to attack each turn. 3 damage isn’t terribly threatening, but trading off a creature or risking more stun counters means it’s not a fun creature to block. Perfect to help blue decks stabilize and grind down their foes!

Black – Old Dead Gold Mole-Molded Mold

Black’s monster is a bit of an outlier compared to the rest. Its stats are lower, making it less imposing as a brute force attacker than the others, but it comes bundled with a delayed reanimation effect. This synergizes great with a lot of what this color wants to do—Some decks just want a sticky body, some will see it as two potential sacrifice payoffs, and still others will try to cheat in an even bigger bomb from the graveyard, like Ans Fleurellian or Byss, Indigo Tyrant!

Red – Confounded Chimera

The Confounded Chimera costs an extra mana compared to the monsters listed above, but it’s a fierce 5/5 body with unique versatility! The option to choose a different keyword each combat step means it can come out as a hasty attacker, soar over grounded enemies, or stomp its way through, depending on the current state of the game.

There will usually be an obvious best option (on opponent’s turns, flying is the only one that matters at all), and that’s okay! These big commons are designed to be straightforward to use to complement all the more complicated, decision-heavy effects across the rest of the set.

Green – Fungal Titan

Green decks love a big stompy trampler to push damage through and close out the game. The Fungal Titan is exactly that. While 5 power doesn’t seem like the best deal for a 6 mana creature, it makes up for it with its ability to increase power for each creature blocking it. This lets it absolutely steamroll through small chump-blockers! The only way to stop it is by offering up larger defenders, and potentially lose crucial chunks of board presence.

Colorless – Scrap Baby

Finally, the Scrap Baby stands (or crawls) as the most expensive colorless card in the entire set, costing a whopping 7 mana for a 6/5 trample body. Since colorless creatures can be played in any decks regardless of mana base, it’s important to keep their stats slightly under rate. Otherwise, every deck would use them.

This can make them feel a bit like a consolation prize, but that’s actually a good thing! I want Scrap Baby to be the sort of card that gets played as a “plan B”… If a player drafts a solid green deck but never manages to pull a Fungal Titan, they’d rather fall back on a slightly overpriced big body than nothing at all. For their troubles, the Scrap Baby also de-buffs opposing creatures with its terrifying size!

My hope is that each of these creatures plays into the strategies of each color enough that they feel flavorful and different from each other… while also being straightforward enough that they keep games moving smoothly toward a conclusion! There are plenty of uncommons and rares in the set that require more nuanced strategies or offer more powerful synergies to build a deck around, but never underestimate the importance of simpler cards to glue it all together.