After a full year of playtesting in 2024, it’s time to revisit this set’s unique mechanics to see what worked, what didn’t, and what needs to change.

Inspire X

Create X Inspiration tokens. They’re colorless enchantments with “Sacrifice this enchantment: Target creature you control gains +1/+1 until end of turn.”

If Concentration and Hoard struggled this past year, Inspire stood tall as the defining mechanic of the Unwell Kingdom! There were a few standouts that actually needed to be toned down a bit with Gruul and Jund Inspiration decks dominating the first half of the year, but it’s currently in a very healthy spot.

What Worked

To start, it’s worth mentioning that Inspiration tokens themselves have been very successful as a twist on the familiar +1/+1 counters in other Magic sets. Because they’re single-use but can be applied at instant speed, the prevailing strategy is to stock up lots of them to apply “soft power”. If any 1/1 creature could suddenly become a 6/6, then opponents are likely to let the 1/1 through unblocked. But them moment the attacker actually chooses to cash out on those buffs, their future attacks become much less threatening! The end result is a minigame of chicken during combat, and it’s very satisfying to call someone’s bluff and force them to go through with a trade in order to deplete their stash of tokens. Inspire leads to a lot of skill-testing moments that are unique to The Unwell Kingdom, and lend the set a lot of its flavor and memorability!

Gerald the Heavy is in a very funny spot as a card that playtesters often ask me to buff, despite it looking great every single time it’s played. It stocks up a free Inspiration once per turn, it gives other creatures haste so they can immediately use that buff, and worst case it’s a 3-toughness blocker! The most frequent feedback I get is that players wish they could activate his ability at instant-speed, mostly so they could hold it up as a blocker AND still get the Inspiration on their opponent’s end step. However, I prefer forcing the choice instead. I also want to avoid instant-speed Inspiration as much as possible… this mechanic is at its best when it sits there on the board and demands players to work around it, rather than surprising them out of the blue.

The Finishers. Stockpiling Inspiration tokens is all well and good, but decks that build around the mechanic really want a way to pay them off beyond their base +1/+1 buffs. Fortunately, There are a number of bombs in the set that pull this off in unique and powerful ways.

• Kingbird, Rekindled is perhaps the most straightforward of these, offering a good old Gruul overrun effect that turns each Inspiration token into +1/+1 and Trample for ALL of your creatures. Its only drawback is that it gives the opponent a single turn to react… unless it’s paired with Gerald for a hasty attack trigger!
• Garp Garp, Lord of Bones has the most confusing effect of these bombs at first glance, but once playtesters parse that his tap ability sacrifices himself for scalable direct damage, those 3 extra tokens start looking real nice. This card has proven to be a go-to closer for Rakdos decks, which can further combine Garp Garp with cards like Crestfall Catacombs for even more damage, or The Indigo to reanimate him and do it all again.
• “Thrashikus,” False Prophet is another deceptively strong attacker. Most players see a 2/3 for 4 mana and expect the worst, but even a single Inspiration token is enough to pull him up to a 4/4. Interestingly, he’s been especially strong in Inspire mirror matches, where opponent’s have to think twice about poppoing their own tokens, or else “Thrashikus” sees those too!

Cog has turned out to be a fantastic little deckbuilding puzzle piece! He’s one of the few ways for any color to access Inspiration tokens, but he’s not terribly threatening without finding ways to Inspire 3. Delightfully, this means Cog plays very differently in each color!

– White’s various blink abilities cause Cog to enter from exile. Ephemeral Unicorn is a particularly potent combo, letting Cog Inspire 3 every turn.
– While more of a Dimir keyword, finding ways to play Cog from the Hoard with cards like The Indigo Herald technically counts as entering from exile! Pelly, Honest Smuggler also gets a shout-out for the time one player drafted her alongside all four copies of Cog and decided he didn’t need the full Inspire 3 and was happy enough to bounce his Cogs back to hand and play them again for extra Inspire 1 triggers.
– Black has tools like The Indigo Broker to reanimate Cog from the grave, a nice straightforward synergy.
– Red ironically has the fewest ways to trigger the Inspire 3, though impulse draw like New Melody can potentially fit the bill. Instead, red decks get the most out of Cog by playing it on turn 1 to snowball into their other Inspire effects.
– Even green decks, which usually miss out on the Inspire 3 payoff entirely, can make use of Cog! He comes down early enough to curve into Press On for ramp, and green is able to make use of the 0/1 flying body by attaching Equipment to it instead!

Because of this, almost any deck is happy to see Cog show up in their draft, which is a huge flavor win. Just look at that lil guy!

What Didn’t Work

There was only one notable stain on Inspiration this year, and it came in the form of a card everyone liked so much, they begged me not to nerf it.

Practice Cactus is the other colorless 1-drop in the set to give any deck access to Inspiration. By equipping it to a creature, it provides an effortless drip feed of Inspiration tokens each turn. It quickly became a favorite among testers, both for its cute name/art and its ability to snowball games into their favor. However, as mentioned above, Inspiration is at its most powerful when stockpiled, and Practice Cactus turned out to be a bit too good at doing exactly that.

Throughout 2024, Practice Cactus cost 1 to play and 1 to equip. This meant it could potentially curve out perfectly onto a 1-drop creature (say, a Cog) to start churning out Inspiration as early as turn 3’s upkeep. This proved too fast for a lot of decks to answer. Specifically, turn-1 creature into turn-2 Practice Cactus + equip led to more non-games than any other opener, and made Inspiration-focused aggro decks feel unstoppable.

What Needs to Change

Practice Cactus received a crucial nerf in January 2025: increasing the equip cost from 1 to 2. This minor tweak means players can no longer run away with the game by curving out a 1-drop, and also makes it a bit more punishing to re-equip if the first creature is removed. It still saw some play without feeling overwhelming in the most recent playtest, so with luck it won’t require any additional nerfs.

Otherwise, Inspiration feels like it’s in a very healthy spot! It’s the gold standard for power-level to inform the balance of the set’s other archetypes. Here’s to another year of playtesting!