The Unwell Kingdom saw some seismic shifts during 2025, along with tons of new art! Thanks to many more rounds of playtesting, is was the year the set started to really gel, giving a clearer and clearer picture of what the end result will be here in 2026. Here are some of the highlights, along with lessons learned:

Played Lots of Games

In addition to our usual cadence of 4-8 player draft playtests, we did a special “preconstructed” test to see how each archetype feels in a more optimized environment. This was informative, quickly showing which archetypes were built to win and which ones struggled even in their best-case scenarios. It was also surprisingly fun! I’m now planning for ways to let folks design their own constructed decks once this set is finished.

Each playtest revealed valuable insights into which cards were overtuned, underperforming, or led to unwanted play patterns. There’s simply no substitution for testing to dial in each design.

Drew Lots of Art

94 cards and tokens got fresh art this year, including several awesome pieces from guest artists! I really love seeing different artstyles coexist here. It reminds me what a massive collaborative effort this project has been, and also makes it feel more like real MtG sets. It was especially cool to add another photo card in Consecrated Circle (I spun an LED strip around Larissa‘s handsewn Fable figurine, while Andres took long exposure shots and composited them together into the final result!)

There are even more guest pieces on the way in 2026! And, as of the time of writing, only 14 cards remain that need art at all!! The end is in sight.

Tweaked Lots of Cards

2025 was the last year to take big swings on card designs. Several cards saw complete reworks, and there was still lots of room for experimentation. However, at this point, I’m trying to take a lighter touch to balance adjustments, with a greater focus on cleaning up syntax and improving playability. Each color’s supported archetypes really solidified this year, and fewer and fewer problem cards have popped up in testing. With luck, all that’s left now is final design polish.

Finalized New Mechanics

The signature new mechanics of the Unwell Kingdom have reached their final form. They each feel cohesive and play much more smoothly than their original incarnations.

Inspire — Inspiration remains unchanged, and continues to be a golden standard for this set. During our first public playtest, multiple players called out this mechanic as feeling, fun, fresh, and intuitive! Once again, the only changes it received were to individual cards, which tend to overperform thanks to Inspire’s tendency to snowball. This time, fan-favorite Cog was the one that got hit with a slight nerf.

Concentration — The built-in drawbacks to Concentration Auras were both a bit too punishing and difficult for players to remember. In particular, having them sacrifice themselves upon the enchanted creature being targeted by any spell or ability made them feel too fragile to be worthwhile, and made for uneven matchups. The mechanic got simplified to only break when enchanted creature takes damage. After several rounds of testing with the new version, it feels much more approachable.

Even with this, it’s become clear that Concentration is not a mechanic that can carry an archetype on its own. Instead, it tends to show up as scattered support pieces. With this in mind, I pivoted some of the cards that were originally designed to support it. The clearest example is Study Buddy, which is no longer all-in on protecting your enchanted creatures, and now provides some much-needed synergy for the Izzet Wizards theme.

Hoard — This keyword also needed some cleanup to make it more attractive to play. The biggest change is the one players asked for the most: each player now keeps their own hoards, instead of treating it like a shared pool. This immediately proved to be the right call, both because it gave players more confidence that their own setups wouldn’t be used against them, and because it allowed for card text to be simplified for easier play. Now cards “from among hoarded cards” can simply be referred as cards “from your hoard.”

Several of the Hoard cards also saw incremental buffs, in an attempt to make them more competitive. Engine pieces like Frara’s Scale, Broker’s Negotiations, and The Indigo Herald now allow players to access their hoards with lower mana requirements and fewer restrictions, since setting up hoards is already so slow in practice.

Created the UWK Discord Server

I set up an official Discord server to help coordinate events and see what sort of community we can build around the set. I can’t say this was a resounding success… self promotion is not my strong suit. But it proved helpful for our public test, and has been a good gauge for where to focus efforts. Ultimately, this will be a set for myself and close friends to play, first and foremost.

Next Steps

So what does all this mean for 2026? Currently, we’re on track to complete the art for all cards in the next month or two. I’ve been using that as my soft deadline for balance adjustments, which means we’ll probably get a couple more playtests before it’s time to lock everything in. After that comes the final formatting pass to prepare the cards for print, and then putting in a massive order to replace my cheap inkjet-printed proxies. And that’s it! We’re nearly at the finish line now, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!