The Unwell Kingdom’s most recent playtest was a unique one. We had a mix of experienced and brand-new players, so rather than toss them all into a draft together, I brewed up ten pre-constructed Standard decks! This gave the new players clearer game plans to follow, but it also served as a perfect opportunity to reassess many of the set’s main archetypes and see how they stack up in a constructed format. The last time we attempted pre-cons was over a year ago, in early 2024, and these cards have seen seismic shifts since then!
Overall, this led to more card tweaks than expected. Most are minor tweaks, but there are a few bigger swings and total redesigns in the mix. Also, this update features quite a few buffed cards—the pre-cons proved that some intended archetypes still lacked support to compete with known winners like Rakdos Inspire or Gruul Stompy, which feel like this set’s gold standard of fun and functional. Many tweaks are also aimed at shortening the average length of games. As much as I personally love mid-range grind, too many games have been stalling out into wide board stand-offs without enough ways to convert those boards into lethal threats.
Lastly, the less experienced playtesters highlighted the value of including reminder text as often as possible! This set features a lot of mechanics to keep track of, and while many are “evergreen”, even those can afford to include reminders. I’ll lean more in that direction going forward, while also making sure text boxes don’t get over-stuffed.
With all that out of the way, here are the patch notes for this month:
(MECHANIC CHANGE) Hoard
Hoarded cards are no longer shared between players
Since the very first playtests of the Unwell Kingdom, players bristled at the idea of “hoarding” cards by putting them into a shared pool and potentially accessed by anyone. While this functionally almost never came up since effects that let you play hoarded cards are scarce, it was enough to turn many away from building around the mechanic at all. Whatever interaction I had hoped to preserve in potential mirror matches was completely irrelevant if no one was playing the deck.
So, it’s finally time to give people what they want. “Hoarding” a card still means exiling it with a hoard counter on it, but now instead of the clunky phrase “from among hoarded cards,” effects now simply refer to “cards from your hoard.” This is both easier to read and more intuitive, and all Hoard cards have been updated to reflect the change.
In addition to this global change, many individual Hoard cards have been reworked to give the archetype a better fighting chance against its competition…
(BUFF) Frara’s Scale
Reduced cost of alternate abilities
Building a constructed Hoard deck proved to me that Frara’s Scale is an even more crucial engine piece than I realized. While the best hoard payoffs are on the higher end of the mana curve (eg. Byss, Indigo Tyrant or The Indigo Herald), a full Hoard control deck wants to access that hoard as soon as possible with Broker’s Negotiations or the Scale itself. Scale fills in all the gaps of the game plan, offering ramp to those high-cost payoffs, an outlet to build up your hoard, and a way to access it. However, it was just too slow.
I wanted the hoard abilities to be more costly than tapping it for mana, but I didn’t account for that mana itself. Since you are forced to choose a single effect, it automatically feels like the others cost 
by default. On top of that, while I don’t want it to be too easy to play cards from the hoard, the 2 mana tax often led to cases where players couldn’t afford to pay for those cards anyway. Reducing the cost of each hoard ability by smooths things out considerably.
Lastly, I want to try returning this card to the Common slot, so it’s a bit more dependable to show up and give players more confidence drafting Hoard.
(BUFF) Byss, Indigo Tyrant
Now has trample
As the most expensive creature in the set, Byss should feel absolutely terrifying. However, it was too easy to chump block it with small flying or reach creatures, which denies both face damage and her triggered reanimate ability. Trample will make her more threatening going forward and quickly snowball to a win if not removed quickly.
(BUFF) Pact Blade
→ 
I originally played it safe on Pact Blade’s mana cost since it doesn’t cost mana to equip. At face value, this seems like a real advantage over other Equipment, but the discard requirement shouldn’t be overlooked. In addition, slamming this out on turn 3 still isn’t backbreaking, as there hasn’t been time to build up enough of a hoard for a truly threatening stat buff. Instead, dropping the card to 3 mana should give players more time to swing multiple times and improve the Pact Blade incrementally.
(BUFF) Tourmaline, Far Traveler
-2 ability → -1, Removed “cards in library” requirement
Another patch, another round of tweaks for Tourmaline, Far Traveler. This time, she’s receiving two buffs which aim to improve her play experience.
First, her -2 ability saw absolutely no play and was essentially flavor text. Testers would rely on building her up with her +1 until they could afford to reanimate with the -X ultimate. Going down 2 loyalty is such a drop in momentum for both other abilities, it feels like a nonstarter. I’m going to try dropping it to a -1 ability instead, so players don’t feel as punished for taking a turn off to surveil and protect Tourmaline.
Second, Tourmaline’s ultimate was a wall of text and a pain to actually play. Asking players to count the number of remaining cards in a library is simply not fun. As much as I liked the idea of that additional check to reward players for leaning harder into the mill side of things, it’s just not worth the pain. Now, she will always return the chosen nonland permanent to the battlefield.
(REWORK) The Indigo Herald
Replaced “Enters or attacks” trigger with bigger ETB
The Indigo Herald’s passive feels great when she gets going, but the incremental hoard trigger on attacking felt awkward and too slow for an already-expensive creature. Instead, she’ll now triple up on just the ETB, hoarding three cards when she enters the battlefield. This now hoards from a targeted player instead of each player, which adds a decision point. Is it better to hoard from your own deck or attempt to steal cards from an opponent? Maybe it gets you three cards closer to milling out a player’s entire deck?
(REWORK) Tilde, Nurse-in-Training & Rose, Devoted Florist
Made legendary, reduced lifegain (Tilde) and lifegain threshold for triggered card draw (Rose)
Tilde and Rose are the somewhat gimmicky “Partner with” cards of this set, and while they’ve been tricky to line up in drafts or sealed games, constructed decks made them look absurdly powerful. Most obviously, having multiple copies of each in a single deck means it’s extremely easy to start a chain of tutoring them back and forth. It was immediately clear that, despite being common cards, they needed to be Legendary to prevent the board from deterministically snowballing and Rose triggers stacking for even more card advantage.
Beyond that, Tilde gaining 3 life on ETB proved to be a bigger swing than I expected. She was generically stronger than most 2-drops even before factoring in Rose. Hopefully gaining 2 life instead feels more appropriate.
To compensate for this, Rose’s ability now triggers on any amount of lifegain. She still works with Tilde, and may even be flexible enough to include more often in decks without her.
(BUFF) Gin, Swift Justice
2/4 → 2/5, added flash
One of the most consistent pieces of feedback on Gin, Swift Justice was that he didn’t feel very “swift”… Most players asked if he could have Haste, but I opted for the more white-flavored Flash instead. This opens up some sneaky new plays that feel in-theme with Gin’s unorthodox strategies.
I’ve also bumped his toughness up to 5 to reduce some of the bad trades he could get if his deathtouch + trample combo wasn’t active.
(BUFF) Library Card
“Scry 1” → “Draw a card”
Library Card has been an underwhelming mana filter in a set that already has 3-color lands. The scry effect was not impactful enough, so I’m going to supercharge it into a full card draw. Suddenly, this draft desperation pick has the potential to become an all-star in certain decks. It obviously pairs well with Wizards, effectively becoming a colorless Manamorphose if you build around it. But it also pairs well with cards like Spitts, Furnace Keeper to go mana-positive while digging deeper through your library.
(BUFF) Wizard’s Puzzle Cube // Elixir of Legends
Reduced total mana/turns required on avg. to transform
Wizard’s Puzzle Cube is a fun mana sync, and not meant to be a particularly strong card. However, it was extremely slow to the point of useless. It also had some awkward bits that probably wouldn’t fly on a real Magic card. The way it passively checked the number of solve counters isn’t really how triggered abilities work in this game, and the words “Do nothing” are funny but seem out of place (looking at you Strategy, Schmategy!)
After crunching the numbers, I’ve reworked the spread of results to be more forgiving. It should now take an average of 6.7 mana to flip instead of 7.5, across an average of 2.6 turns instead of 3, and rolling 1 is less punishing than before. I also reworded the tap ability to include the solve counter check, which feels much more in-line with official card templating.
(BUFF) Lord Barrow // Waif & Linda, Witch’s Apprentice // The Moonbeast
No longer need to tap to transform
Both Lord Barrow and Linda, Witch’s Apprentice felt awkward to tap in order to transform… It meant waiting a full turn to flip them, and another turn for them to untap and actually attack, which was often excruciating. These can now transform as soon as you have the mana, limited to sorcery speed, which should make them better draws in the late game. I’ll be keeping an eye on Linda to see if curving turn 3 Linda into turn 4 transform + attack with annihilator feels oppressive, or if it’s a fair payoff for investing two full turns into one card.
(BUFF) Bug in a Jar
“Leaves the battlefield” → “Is put into a graveyard from anywhere”
Bug in a Jar is a tricky card to use, by design. Until now, it needed to be paired with sac outlets like Child of the Blade or Spitts, Furnace Keeper in order to create the 1/1 token. After testing it in one of the pre-con decks, it’s very fun to pull off, but it’s so niche that it’s hard to justify picking in a draft.
In order to give it more angles to succeed, the ability now triggers when it is put into a graveyard from anywhere. This should open up possibilities to occasionally get a free 1/1 when milling or discarding from hand, in addition to sacrificing it! Is that worth a card slot in the deck? I’ll leave that up to players to decide. Also, since it’s no longer “leaves the battlefield”, blinking it is no longer an option, but that only affects Eldoris, which has many better targets in the set.
(REWORK/RENAME) Divine Guardianship → Aasimar’s Radiance
Reworked to promote more aggressive play
This Aura never quite hit the mark. I wanted it to encourage more aggressive play, since an enchanted creature would feel safer swinging into potential blockers (a damage reduction of 2 is better than it sounds!) and worst case, it pings an opponent for 2. However, in rare cases where it did get picked, players would often hold their creature back as a spongy blocker and momentum would grind to a halt. Besides all that, the damage reduction effect detracted from Mage Armor‘s identity. I think it fits better there, since blue wants to protect its Wizards and has other ways to win than combat damage.
I realized there was an opportunity for this card to buff a creature’s power instead, which no other Concentration Aura does (except Higher Learning after jumping through extra hoops). I also want to try letting the 2-damage ping when it leaves target anything, not just players. That all feels plenty red. For the white half of the card, it now grants a turn of lifelink the turn it enters, nudging players even further toward attacking right away. Altogether, this seems like a pretty sweet deal for 3 mana, but it’s still offset by Concentration—any damage dealt to enchanted creature will knock it off. I’m hoping this will create an aggressive but fragile dynamic that forces both players to make some tough decisions.
Last, to better match the aggressive vibe of the effect and its art, I’m changing the name from “Divine Guardianship” to “Aasimar’s Radiance”.
(REWORK) Make History
Anthem effect is persistent, no longer requires Make History to be sacrificed
…
(REWORK) Consecrated Circle
Now a Concentration Aura
Consecrated Circle was in a weird spot. It had already been changed from its old effect, which discounted the cost of other Enchantment spells, but the new +1/+1 buff could still snowball more than it should for how cheap the card is to cast, and how difficult enchantments can be to remove. Fortunately, this set has the perfect mechanic to balance it out: Concentration!
Converting this card into a Concentration Aura felt right as soon as it was tested. It guarantees you’ll always have at least one enchanted creature, so the buff never goes to waste. But it also becomes much more vulnerable! Since any damage dealt to that creature will break Concentration and remove Consecrated Circle, there’s now extra tension to protect it and keep your buff as long as possible. This has become a key piece of a very unique blue/white enchantments deck alongside cards like Spiritual Weapon which has a lot of this glass cannon, snowball feel.
(REWORK) New Melody
Now sorcery speed, gives choice of two cards
I’ve been trying to avoid allowing cards to Inspire at instant speed as much as possible. Since the resulting Inspiration tokens already function as combat tricks, it can feel like a cheap shot to have even more of it pop out after blocks are declared. However, New Melody doesn’t have much more going for it. Exiling a single card to play for a turn is not impactful enough, but exiling two cards alongside the Inspiration would put it above rate for comparable real MtG cards.
I’ve decided to try adjusting it to sorcery speed, and letting it exile two cards, with the restriction that only one of those cards can be played until the end of your next turn. This means more decisions and fewer whiffs, while keeping card advantage in line. I also like the way the new effect is reflected by the art. Perhaps Gerald and Garp Garp each come up with an idea for their new song, but they can only pick one!
(REWORK) Thrashalla
Refocused to buff combatants directly, no longer makes Inspiration tokens. Flash removed.
After a few rounds of minor tweaks, Thrashalla found itself in a weird spot. It’s a 4-mana value generator that does nothing until your creatures die (though flash can help with timing here). The most notable synergy was pairing it with Family Shrub to create extra Goblin tokens each turn, which could freely attack into blockers to begin stockpiling Treasures and Inspiration, which in turn made it safer for Family Shrub to continue attacking. However, in multiple games, this led to an unpleasant game state for BOTH players, which was a surprise! The defending player felt like they were equally punished whether they blocked or not, but the attacking player was so low on cards at that point in the game that the Treasures felt pointless, and the drip-feed of Inspiration tokens still wasn’t enough to close the game. Instead, momentum stalled completely, until the defending player got a lucky draw and crawled back to steal the win. This is exactly the sort of situation I want to avoid, where players feel like their decisions don’t matter for several turns with no clear winner in sight.
I decided it was time for a full redesign of the card, while still maintaining the thematic flavor of a thrash-metal afterlife that rewards glorious combat! The rework now gives attackers a buff right away, offering them +1/+0 and trample up front instead of Inspiration after death. This should help it break parity in those sticky board scenarios… I’ve noticed in general that a few more sources of trample could really help this set. Lastly, it will still give Treasure tokens on death, but is now limited to legendary creatures. This is obviously much more niche, and I expect it will mostly be flavor text. I just want to avoid the Treasure flood I saw with those Goblin tokens.
(REWORK) Tender-Eyes
Added trample, adjusted AOE trigger
Tender-Eyes has languished as a card with a simple idea that didn’t quite work in practice. In our D&D campaign, it served as Kornaan’s signature weapon, a spring-loaded hammer that, upon hitting an enemy, would recoil to the ground and cast Earth Tremor. For the card, I knew I wanted an Equipment that could cast the MtG classic Tremor! But my first attempt was all backwards.
A built-in AOE really wants to work best against a wide board of weak creature tokens. But since it only triggered on dealing damage to a player, opponents were incentivized to block the giant creature with a 1/1, and then nothing else would happen. This meant it was actually best against empty boards or one to punch up at a big single blocker.
So, I’m going to flip it around. Tender-Eyes now gives +2/+2 instead of +3/+3, but it adds trample into the mix. Goodbye chump blockers. It also now triggers its AOE when dealing damage to creatures, not players. This faces opponents with a tough choice: block the big attack and risk it doing extra damage to the whole board? Or let the damage through to keep creatures safe? Tender-Eyes is now much more capable of punching through a wide board, and should feel like a better investment of mana to play and equip it.
(REWORK) Kieran’s Manipulation
New cost reduction if targeting your own creature
Kieran’s Manipulation gives a rare chance to force two opposing creatures to fight each other. In the right circumstances, this can be extremely effective removal despite its steep mana cost. However, the “Damage can’t be prevented this turn” clause felt like filler. I knew it had to change after auditing the full set and finding only one instance of damage prevention at all (the single-target Fog effect of Weasel Warden)!
Instead, I’m taking a page from real MtG’s This Town Ain’t Big Enough, and allowing Manipulation to be played for if one of the targets is your own creature. This makes it a much more attractive modal spell, either 2 red mana for a classic fight effect, or 5 mana for the flashier one. This should make it much easier to include in decks.
(REWORK) The Chroma Tree
Now an Aura, replaced free spells with bounce effect
The Chroma Tree is getting closer to its goal as one of the set’s biggest, flashiest Mythics. Its previous ability that let you cast a free spell from anywhere each turn felt off… After jumping through so many hoops to cast it in the first place, a grindy value payoff didn’t seem like the right reward. It also felt too similar to the recursive value engines of the Hoard mechanic.
Instead, I wanted to play up the raw power of Inspire 10! It’s often enough to close a game on its own, with a glaring exception: chump blockers. After trying several other variations, this latest Chroma Tree is now an Aura that you place onto a land. In addition to the immediate burst of Inspiration, the enchanted land gains the ability to tap to bounce any creature back to its owner’s hand, mirroring the Chroma Tree returning lost souls from Byss’s evil clutches! This one will definitely need more testing to see if it’s in the right spot just yet.
(REWORK) Captive Companions
5 mana 4/5 →4 mana 4/4
At the 5 mana slot, Captive Companions felt a bit too close to Fungal Titan‘s role as a big expensive green trampler. Green was starting to feel too heavy on 5-drops in general, with Sprout, the Intertwined getting bumped from 4 to 5.
We’ll see how this fairy frog duo feels as a 4-mana 4/4. My hope is that it adds a reliable midrange option, and feels slightly worse to sacrifice for a counterspell in a pinch.
(REWORK) Kornaan the Cobbler
Copy ability now always costs 3 mana
Kornaan’s ability to copy Equipment was originally set up as a sliding scale cost, to match the mana cost of the Equipment being copied. However, this came with the drawback that it couldn’t copy tokens, largely because I thought tokens in MtG always have a converted mana cost of 0, and could therefore be abused once you start chaining copies (This is false. I only recently learned that token copies will also copy the original cost… Oops!). It was also a bummer that he didn’t pair well with another key signpost card, Mishka, Unfazed Fighter‘s Improvised Arms token.
The new wording on this effect sidesteps the converted mana cost issue entirely by costing a flat , so it can copy both token and nontoken Equipment. This makes it a slightly worse deal for cheaper Equipment, though that’s still offset by the free equip. And if you’re willing to splash red, it’s now an even better deal with Kornaan’s signature weapon, Tender-Eyes! Hopefully this is all enough for Equipment decks to cobble together some serious value into the late game.
(REWORK) Bagzo Bones // Bagzo, Fell King Reborn
Now counts your own creatures dying, added mana cost to return from graveyard
Bagzo is one of the scariest threats in the Unwell Kingdom… if you can manage to transform him. However, the requirement for five of your opponent’s creatures to die made this nearly impossible. While some variables were in your control (pairing Bagzo with lots of removal), most weren’t (drawing him early enough in the game, hoping your opponent plays a lot of creatures). This meant that the only time he successfully flipped in testing, it was due to extra bone counters from Bagzo’s Corner, and even after flipping, he didn’t always win players the game! Especially with this patch’s push to shorten the average game length, Bagzo is just too slow.
So, Bagzo can now add bone counters when your own creatures die! This will let players use him much more proactively, and he now slots right into sacrifice decks.
I also realized when brewing constructed decks that Bagzo’s ability to return from graveyard to hand by discarding another card creates an infinite discard loop with two copies of him… Pair that with a Crestfall Catacombs to deal damage per discarded creature, and that’s an instant kill! This never came up in limited, since the set cube only has one copy of each mythic card. Rather than tack on a clunky fix like “Discard a non-Skeleton card,” for now I’ve just added a cost so it’s not completely free.
(REWORK) Level Skull // Awakened Level Skull
Now gives equipped creature +1/0, now requires activated ability to transform, Awakened Level Skull has haste and adjusted mana cost
Similar to Wizard’s Puzzle Cube, Level Skull’s transform trigger being a passive check felt wrong. It’s now an activated ability that costs , and is sorcery speed to prevent it becoming a surprise blocker.
It also felt wrong that equipping the Level Skull to its canonical owner, Garp Garp, Lord of Bones would leave Garp’s power too low to flip into the Awakened Level Skull. Huge flavor fail! Giving equipped creature +1/+0 in addition to menace means it’s just enough (alongside Garp Garp’s 3 Inspiration tokens) to reach a perfect 5 power. This specific case probably isn’t the most efficient use of mana, but it is thematic. However, this also means Level Skull should be more useful in general, even if it never transforms!
Lastly, the flipped side of the card, Awakened Level Skull, is getting some tweaks to smooth out play patterns. First, it now gains haste, allowing it to attack right away if you manage to flip the Skull the turn it’s played. Its activated ability now costs 
. The color requirement feels less relevant now that it already costs an extra to flip into it.
(TWEAK) Rye Skullport, Bremaster & Blargg Blargg
“At the beginning of combat on your turn” → “Whenever you attack”, Rye now Legendary
Both Rye and Blargg Blargg have triggered abilities that buff creatures on your turn. It felt strange to have those trigger when it didn’t matter, so I’ve updated those to only apply when attacking with at least one creature.
(TWEAK) Ans Fleurellian & Scrap Shard
“Leaves the battlefield” → “Dies”
Ans Fleurellian and Scrap Shard both have beneficial effects that, until now, triggered on leaving the battlefield. It’s become clear that these effects are too easy to abuse with blink effects (especially Ephemeral Unicorn!) and it’s frustrating for exile or bounce removal to still result in triggers. Moving forward, these effects will only trigger on death.
(TWEAK) Unbreakable Bolt
→
This is reverting a change from May’s patch notes. After more testing, it became clear that three red mana is too severe a color requirement for any deck that isn’t mono-red. Due to the incremental build of damage it deals, getting this Aura stuck in hand for even a few turns completely de-fangs it. I want this to be a viable card in Izzet Wizard decks, so it’s changing back to .
(NERF) Sprout, the Intertwined
4 mana → 5 mana
The recent changes to Sprout turned out to be TOO effective! Now that it can be played as a creature for only green mana, it quickly became clear that a 2/5 body with Cascade was way over the line. For now, I’ll start by bumping it up to 5 mana, but I plan to keep an eye on this one in the future.
(RARITY) Various rarity adjustments
As much as I love Navi-Gator, I’d rather see Frara’s Scale as this set’s common mana rock. Hoard decks need all the support they can get to function in drafts. Kittypaw Lake has also been surprisingly well received! It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s proven itself an excellent utility piece for Wizard decks and should be an excellent common to rely on. In its place, Bonus Action is funky and pretty niche, so bumping it up to uncommon should be a good fit.
Common → Uncommon
Uncommon → Common
Now that Make History is more straightforwardly powerful, it feels more appropriate in the rare slot. This makes room for the protection spell Short Rest to drop to uncommon.
Uncommon → Rare
Rare → Uncommon
There were more changes than I expected this time around, but the set still feels like it’s settling into a solid place! It’s reached a point where I’m hoping to reach out to my LGS and coordinate a playtest there, with total strangers! Also, we’re down to only 50 cards remaining that still need art. Getting closer!