May’s playtest was a big success! It was a simple 4-player draft with some usual faces, and the winner was Mole Stompy for the second test in a row, this time in Golgari colors instead of Simic. It’s a strong archetype, but nothing that warrants nerfing at this time. Second place went to Izzet Wizards in its strongest showing since the Blue reworks, and it was great to see a relentless stream of Wizard tokens from cards like Kittpaw Lake, Tower of Secrets, and the debut of High Council Summons. Some well-timed AOE removal wiped those tokens and spelled the end for its run this time, but it still placed above jund midrange and a greedy 4-color (but mostly orzhov), 60-card pile from the other competitors.
The set is feeling more and more cohesive with each test, so I’m happy to say there’s only one nerf this time around, and it’s mostly for flavor! Instead, This balance patch is focused on reworking cards that haven’t quite found a home in any archetype, and reducing unintuitive or “feels bad” moments. I’d like to say that means only a few changes this time around but…
I went down a rabbit hole after seeing The Blade King fail spectacularly for the jund midrange player in what should have been a great deck for it. Fixing it up inspired a cascade of other tweaks, and I believe the end result will push a minor subtheme in the set into a proper archetype: welcome to the Discard/Sacrifice patch!
Here are the patch notes for this month:
(REWORK) The Blade King
Now triggers on discard/sacrifice
The Blade King is an odd card. It doesn’t seem like a Vehicle at first glance, though for lore reasons that’s actually a perfect fit for this wicked suit of armor. Taking advantage of its triggered ability to animate it for the turn results in a fearsome attacker, but in practice, this proved to be much easier said than done. The initial concept was to pair it with a sac outlet like Child of the Blade, but it’s too narrow to be reliable. For that reason, I expanded the trigger to “Whenever a creature you control dies”, hoping it might punish incoming removal.
Instead, it felt awful! Most creature deaths in our tests were happening from combat damage, meaning The Blade King would become a creature after it was too late to attack or block. One tester suggested letting it stay a creature until the end of the NEXT turn, but that would likely get confusing to track alongside the single-turn Crew option. Whatever the trigger, it needed to be proactive. Seeing a dismal board of a Blade King, a creature too small to crew it, and a Blood token (another awkward subtheme that exists for lore purposes but barely interacts with the set as a whole) made a solution click into place: The Blade King could trigger on discarded creatures in addition to sacrificed ones!
This creates many more opportunities to trigger the effect without needing stars to align. In addition to Blood tokens, Black offers a number of discard outlets, including several creatures with their own “Discard or sacrifice” abilities! The next several changes all came about as a way to reinforce this mechanic and hopefully make all involved cards more consistent.
(REWORK) Crestfall Catacombs
Sacrifice → Discard or sacrifice
Like the Indigo Broker changes in last month’s patch, this change aims to make “discard or sacrifice” cards feel like their payoffs are less lopsided by triggering on either option. This is a definite buff, and it presents a lot of new synergies with loot effects like Blood tokens! There are a few unrestricted discard outlets in the Unwell Kingdom (Pact Blade, Broker’s Negotiations) that could turn Crestfall Catacombs into a new win condition!
(REWORK) Harlowe’s Epiphany
Sacrifice a creature or lose 3 life → Discard or sacrifice a creature
Harlowe’s Epiphany has performed well in its role of midgame card draw for Black. However, I noticed players unanimously chose to lose 3 life over sacrificing a creature. In an effort to push more engagement with the mechanic and present an actual decision (as well as being more flavorful with Harlowe’s dark magic experiments), it now requires a player to discard or sacrifice a creature. This means there can now be spots where it becomes unplayable, but hopefully these decks find ways to keep some creatures on board or hold a few back.
(REWORK) Establish Order
Now targets any matching permanent type, can sacrifice or discard
I want Establish Order to be a huge signpost reason to play a Black and White discard/sac strategy. For players able to maintain the board presence or hand size for the extra cost, this exile spell is now one of the cheapest and most flexible in the entire set. It also just feels right to give up a card of the same type as whatever you want to target.
(REWORK) Persistent Shade
Complete rework into a discard/sac 1-drop
Persistent Shade is getting a full rework this patch that should accomplish several goals at once. It having Escape and hoarding cards made SOME narrative sense (It references a ghost Gin punched early in the campaign, which showed years later during the finale in the afterlife!), but mechanically it was a bad fit for mono-white. I did like the tap and stun counters though, especially as a one-two punch with Attack of Opportunity to destroy the tapped creature! I also felt like White could really use another 1-drop alongside Royal Guard for players looking for classic White Weenie aggro. Lastly, I wanted to maintain its blink synergies if possible, and even loop in discard/sac.
This new version of the Shade drops it to a 1-mana 1/1 with a simple tap effect on entry, and the option to discard or sac it to lock down a tapped creature for a turn with a stun counter. This version feels clean, much easier to read and quickly understand, but I also expect it will find a lot of versatile ways to be used across a variety of White decks!
(REWORK) Fleetfoot Spy
Sacrifice → Discard or sacrifice
Another example of expanding an existing sacrifice ability into discard/sac. Fleetfoot Spy can now function as a pretty mediocre cycling card in addition to its usual gameplan. Yay!
(REWORK) Old Dead Gold Mole-Molded Mold
Reanimates creature directly from graveyard, now has failsafe if all graveyards are empty
When Old Dead Gold Mold-Molded Mold worked, it felt perfect! Like you could see the monster in the ooze just waiting to burst out. However, the fail cases were horrendous. Exiling, bouncing, or countering the mold’s death trigger became a 2-for-1, since the chosen creature the player hoped to reanimate was now stuck in exile forever. Likewise, playing the Mold with no creatures in graveyards was a pitiful 5-mana 4/3.
To shore up these drawbacks, it will now wait until it dies to pull directly from the graveyard, and now there’s a backup option to make a Skeleton token. I want this cycle of curvetoppers in each color to be impactful, if not as flashy as other creatures at higher rarities. Hopefully this one feels a bit less punishable going forward.
(REWORK) Day of the Red Skies
Creatures now sacrificed instead of hoarded at end of turn
I fear Day of the Red Skies fell through the cracks between reanimate and hoard strategies. Even if its original effect was functional, it saw no play. I suspect the Rakdos Reanimate decks that should want to play it got scared off by seeing “hoard” at the end of the text box, and actual hoard decks try not to keep important cards in their graveyards.
Instead, this revision will only sacrifice the creatures at the end of the turn, and potentially net extra sacrifice payoffs in the process. It can now also pull creatures FROM the hoard in addition to graveyards to make it less likely to lock yourself out of the card.
(REWORK) Glass Sword
Streamlined effect, buffed equipped creature from +1/-1 → +2/-1
Glass Sword making a Blood token on equip, once per turn, turned out to be pretty awkward in practice. It also encouraged a Skullclamp-but-worse strategy of equipping it onto a 1-toughness creature for the token, and then letting the creature die to the +1/-1 modifier.
Now, the creature will need to survive long enough to attack with the Sword equipped. In exchange, it now gets +2/-1 and makes a free Blood token as an attack trigger. This should make it more straightforward to wield effectively, and lead to fewer accidental misplays.
(REWORK) Hangman
Simplified effect
Hangman was a doozy of a text box. I knew I wanted him to be a relentless menace that can be killed or sacrificed but keeps coming back, with the option to “pay off” opponents to return sooner. Unfortunately, his abilities kept getting longer and more convoluted to avoid infinite sac loops, and included stun counters as a nod to Lay Low (a card that got cut last patch anyway). As I struggled to find an elegant version of coming back tapped with stun counters, WotC beat me to the punch with Duskmourn’s Unstoppable Slasher!
All this told me it was time to go back to the drawing board. This new version of Hangman is much simpler to read and understand. You can cast him from your own graveyard by “paying” an opponent two Treasure tokens, but without all the stun counter nonsense. This now has the extra benefit of making him a great discard candidate, further reinforcing discard/sac!
(REWORK) Night at the Tavern
Choose two, tokens now enter untapped
Originally, Night at the Tavern made three tokens that all entered tapped. The idea was that you would gain the benefits overnight (on your next turn) without asking players to remember a delayed trigger. Unfortunately, this got wonky when I remembered that tapping for abilities is part of artifacts’ identity, but not enchantments. A tapped Inspiration token could therefore be used right away no matter what. I let the card exist that way for several months of testing, but the asymmetry is too much to bear.
It would be way too strong if all three tokens came in untapped, since the Treasure token essentially means Night at the Tavern is a 1-mana spell. So, time for a new compromise: the tokens can be used right away, but you can only choose two.
(REWORK) Turner, Chief Archivist
3 mana → 4 mana, added flexibility
The Izzet Wizards archetype features some enchantments, but still relies mostly on instants and sorceries. Blue also had a noticeable lack of 4-mana creatures (only two rares meant just two cards in the entire set cube), so when players asked for Turner to be more flexible, it felt appropriate to bump him up a mana.
Now, Turner can grab an instant, sorcery, or enchantment from the graveyard, and is now a 2/2 body. This is still a very powerful effect for a spellslinger deck, so in addition to the extra mana cost, players must discard a card. It’s no longer strict card advantage, but I expect the versatility to make this a solid pick going forward.
(REWORK) Grimmtail’s Ferry
Triggered ability changed to tap ability
Grimmtail’s Ferry was always meant to be an Equipment synergy piece first and foremost, but it stuck out among the Merchants Cycle of card draw artifacts as the weakest by far. It makes sense for Green to be more limited in draw than other colors, but this was the only one that could be 3 mana: do nothing.
Instead, I’m going to see how it feels if its draw effect is enabled by ANY artifact entering under your control, not just Equipment. At worst, this means it can see itself enter and draw a card right away, but it’s especially useful alongside Food token generators like Merka and Mole Mercenary.
(RENAME) Distrusting Dismissal → Shun
Simple and clean
I love finding snappy, evocative, one-word card names that haven’t already been taken. Shun is perfect for a bounce spell.
(BUFF) Study Buddy
Now buffs toughness of other Wizards, always has defender
Study Buddy was intended to protect creatures with Concentration Auras on them, but playtests have shown that those don’t show up enough in most games for this kind of dedicated support. Instead, the Izzet Wizards archetype depends on keeping as many Wizards on board as possible, but sometimes feels powerless against scattered damage pings.
This new version supports both themes, keeping its old hexproof clause but also giving all other Wizards a +0/+1 buff. In exchange, Study Buddy now always has defender, but this shouldn’t be a huge loss… I don’t believe that last ability triggered even once in testing.
(BUFF) Pelly, Honest Smuggler
Mill 1 → Mill 2
Milling a single card didn’t feel impactful enough to make it a meaningful choice compared to drawing a card or creating a Treasure token. “Mill two cards” still isn’t a massive difference, but it brings it more in line with something like Gravekeeper Ira, and should hopefully be more satisfying to pick.
(BUFF) Lord Clancy
Activated ability costs 1 less
Waiting a full turn to pay mana AND tap Lord Clancy AND sacrifice a creature made his activated ability a bit too difficult to pull off. Reducing the mana cost by half should ease this slightly, so it feels less like you’re committing two full turns to tutor a creature to hand.
(BUFF) Lost in the Swamp
Landcycling costs 1 less
I originally played it safe with the mana costs for this card in exchange for its flexibility, but after playing with the 1-mana Omen half of Sagu Wilding during a Tarkir Dragonstorm sealed night, I think 1 green mana to grab a basic land feels perfectly safe.
(NERF) Mr. Muster, Mayor Martyr
1/4 → 1/3
The only direct nerf of this patch, Mr. Muster loses a point of toughness, down to a 1/3. This wasn’t a case of the card being too powerful, but purely for flavor purposes. In our D&D campaign, Mr. Muster was an NPC the players failed to rescue… Some bad rolls led to him getting melted by acid from a young black dragon. 3 toughness ensures he can now be removed by a single Acid Spray.
Sorry, Mr. Muster!
(FIX) Monkey Spider
Now auto-equips stolen Equipment
We had an awkward moment during this playtest where one player stole another’s Equipment with Monkey Spider, but we realized that it would stay equipped to their opponent’s creature until they manually equipped it elsewhere. I told them to play it out with the more intuitive outcome, where the Monkey Spider auto-equips the weapon. It’s definitely a buff, but feels like a necessary one to make it more straightforward to use.
(RARITY) Various rarity adjustments
Split the Party continues to go unpicked at common, despite being fairly powerful. I’m going to move it back to rare which is more in line with a mass bounce effect anyway. Instead, Library Wisps will take its place in the common slot, and hopefully provide a more reliable 4-drop creature for Blue decks pushing into the mid-game (Previously, the only other 4-drop in that color was the mythic Silas, the Scatterbrained.)
Common → Rare
Rare → Common
Gardener Welk and Resistance Outfitter are also swapping places between common and uncommon slots. This one’s mostly vibes-based, as neither has seen much play… competition among playable green creatures is fierce! That said, I’d like to see a bit more of Resistance Outfitter alongside the adjusted Grimmtail’s Ferry mentioned above, and Gardener Welk being a named character feels slightly less common I suppose.
Common → Uncommon
Uncommon → Common
Lastly, Hurdy Gurdy and the Blessing are another mostly-vibes swap. The Blessing just feels like it should be more special in both name and effect. It’s as close to a bomb as Equipment get in this set. Meanwhile, Hurdy Gurdy is strong but feels more appropriate as a support piece. I’d rather see it pop up slightly more often.
Uncommon → Rare
Rare → Uncommon
This month’s playtest will be a special one! I’ve brewed up several standard decks for testers to use as precons. We’ll be testing with some players who are new to Magic, so it seemed wise not to scaring them off with a full draft. But it’s also a great chance to revisit the “best case” scenario for several archetypes and see what’s working! Stay tuned!