The Unwell Kingdom’s most recent draft playtest was another success! Due to a late start, we didn’t find a definitive winner, but several players went 2-1 with varied decks like Selesnya Equipment, Azorius Enchantments, Jund Stompy, and a 5-color greed pile. Despite the balanced results, there were a few standout cards that over-performed. This was Zaba Ditka’s second playtest in a row to lead to some blowouts, and some cards that felt a bit too powerful for their rarities. Lastly, multiple players mentioned not seeing as much removal as they’d hoped in the draft, which limited some of their strategies.
The other big focus of this balance patch is reworking mechanics that still haven’t quite come together – Concentration and Hoard saw almost no play across the past year of testing, so I hope these reworks make them more competitive alongside Inspire.
Here are the patch notes for this month:
(MECHANIC CHANGE) Concentration
Targeting a creature no longer breaks Concentration
In an effort to make Concentration Auras less vulnerable, I’m going to try simplifying the mechanic so only damage breaks it. This is a substantial change, but it will hopefully make these cards more reliable while removing some disappointing/unintuitive interactions. You can read more about this change in a Deep-Dive here.
(CUT) Kindly Soles → (NEW) Abjurer’s Staff
It’s rare to completely remove or add cards at this point in the set’s development, but a few factors meant it was time to say goodbye to Kindly Soles. While Selesnya Equipment decks have been fairly reliable so far, players felt a distinct lack of equipment that gave direct stat buffs to their creatures. Kindly Soles was one of the most fiddly of these, and the pseudo-vigilance it offered felt redundant alongside cards like Paper Horse and Fenrik Featherbottom.
It will be replaced by a brand new card: Abjurer’s Staff! In addition to giving a creature a flat +2/+1 buff, it also doubles as a disenchant. This should provide an extra answer to Concentration auras now that they’re more difficult to remove, as well as keeping some of White’s powerful sagas and enchantment creatures in check. There are even a few ways to double up on its ETB by blinking or copying it!
Overall, Abjurer’s Staff should slot much better into a variety of decks than Kindly Soles.
(NERF) Zaba Ditka
5 mana, 5 toughness → 6 mana, 4 toughness
While I was pleased to see Zaba Ditka finally start getting picked in drafts, she proved too strong as a standalone bomb rare. She’s intended to be a fun build-around, but in practice she improves almost any board of creatures (even just a few 1/1 Soldier tokens getting lifelink can become a big life swing). 5 toughness also made her fearsome all on her own! Bumping her down to 4 toughness and up to 6 mana should prevent her from closing out games too early and require players to brew with a bit more intention to make the most of her.
(NERF) Militia Captain
“mana of any color” → “mana of any color among permanents you control
Militia Captain was recently reworked into a signpost uncommon for Green’s “colors matter” subtheme, which leverages multi-color cards (like Resplendent Kenku or Captive Companions) and off-color tokens (made by cards like Cap’n Gator or Full Speed Ahead!) into scaling payoffs. However, this card in practice bypassed the theme entirely and enabled a more generic 5-color “good stuff” soup. By limiting creatures to tap for any color you already have on board, it will still allow wide boards to quickly ramp, but now it will require a bit more setup to break into other colors!
(REWORK) The Indigo Herald
4 mana, mill → 5 mana, Hoard payoff
The Indigo Herald’s old effect failed to be a compelling signpost uncommon for the Hoard mechanic. The Stitcher’s Supplier-esque effect was a step removed from big payoffs like Byss, Indigo Tyrant and Dragonform that want to hoard cards from the graveyard, but in practice those cards function better as standalone bombs than foundational engine pieces. Instead, the Herald’s new design cuts out the middle man and makes her the go-to payoff for other incidental Hoard cards, turning the Hoard into a second hand. This Dimir take on the Hoard is limited to noncreature spells, as opposed to Rakdos’s Dragon tokens, which can play any card type but are limited to once per turn, and sorcery speed. I expect the Herald will promote more vicious control decks which threaten to loop removal and counterspells, but it also opens up a new world of combos when paired with Glimpse the Indigo! Time will tell if this will be enticing enough for players to bite.
(REWORK) Glimpse the Indigo
Hoarding is optional
Glimpse the Indigo pairs with the aforementioned Indigo Herald to set up powerful loops. Playing it immediately lets you hoard three cards from any library, but also sends subsequent spells straight to the hoard when played, allowing them to be replayed with the Herald’s ability. However, some decks may want to play this just for the mill and not care about the Hoard (or find it actively detrimental). This has made it a nonstarter to pair with cards like Tourmaline, Far Traveler, who wants to reanimate creatures from the grave!
Changing the hoard trigger to a “you may” effect will allow Glimpse the Indigo to synergize with these graveyard strategies, and will hopefully make it even clearer that cards hit the graveyard no matter what (death triggers still work, as opposed to a replacement effect like Rest in Peace).
(REWORK) Drakebearer
Hoarding is optional
Drakebearer‘s passive ability is getting the same “you may” treatment as Glimpse the Indigo, to avoid awkward interactions with graveyard-based decks like Rakdos Reanimator, and to keep it easier to remember alongside its Dimir counterpart.
(REWORK) Tourmaline, Far Traveler
5 mana, 4 loyalty → 4 mana, 3 loyalty
With the changes to The Indigo Herald, Dimir suddenly had three 5-mana cards. While those colors do lean into slower value-based strategies, it felt too top-heavy. Tourmaline, Far Traveler will move down to the 4-mana slot, and start with 1 fewer loyalty as a result. This may be a welcome change anyway, since getting her down a turn earlier will help those mill effects snowball.
(REWORK) Indigo Slaad
Adjusted ETB, Menace → Deathtouch
I don’t think the old version of Indigo Slaad saw play even once. It was a bit too cumbersome and unexciting to get picked in testing. While the ETB theoretically helped Hoard strategies by hoarding a creature from any graveyard, the odds of putting a relevant creature into the grave and NOT hoarding it beforehand meant this would usually just be a plain 4/3 with menace (requiring blue mana for a worse Death Dog). The new version aims to streamline this by increasing its transformation pool to include creatures already in the hoard, which will synergize better with cards like Draconic Surveillance and Byss, Indigo Tyrant. It also swaps menace out for deathtouch, to make it more threatening no matter what it becomes!
(REWORK) Goblin Berries
Adjusted effect to be more consistent with other Foods
I was never satisfied with the templating of Goblin Berries. Conceptually, I knew I wanted a spicy, Goblin-flavored take on a Food token, but making sure it functioned alongside Goblins like Grub, Apprentice Chef and Spitts, Furnace Keeper. The old version got close, but it broke the cardinal rule of Foods having a 2-mana sac ability to gain 3 life. This new rework is almost strictly a buff, as it now pings immediately on entry and again when it’s sacrificed. This will give it a lot more utility, but especially with Concentration auras now only breaking on damage, I’m happy for Red to get more reliable 1-damage pings in the set.
(REWORK) Mage Armor
Spells cost 1 more → Ward 1
Now that Concentration no longer breaks when the enchanted creature is targeted, Mage Armor gets to change back to its original design. Because of the way Ward works, it wouldn’t actually prevent the creature from being targeted – the target would put the Concentration aura’s sac trigger on the stack, which would resolve regardless of if the Ward cost was payed and the spell countered. That resulted in the awkward “Spells that target enchanted creature cost 1 more to cast.” As an additional bonus, this now means Mage Armor protects against targeted abilities, not just spells!
(BUFF) Eldoran Leviathan
Can now tap OR untap
Eldoran Leviathan is a powerful curve-topper with the ability to lock down an opponent’s board and secure wins. However, I was annoyed that it didn’t work with card draw from being the monarch, especially since it comes from its namesake saga, Leviathan Tournament! With the old version, drawing an extra card at the end of your turn allowed you to tap down an opponent’s creature, only for it to immediately untap again. I tried a few options – stun counters felt too mean, an extra “if you are the monarch” ability felt out-of-place on a card that doesn’t directly introduce it – until settling on “you may tap or untap target creature”.
Now, as a baseline, maintaining the monarch gives the Leviathan pseudo-vigilance, but it also opens up some sneaky combos with other creatures that tap to draw cards, like Library Wisps and Silas, the Scatterbrained! These all feel right at home in slower Blue control shells, where the Leviathan naturally wants to be anyway!
(BUFF) Flaming Table
3 damage → 4 damage
4 toughness has proven to be a very important breakpoint in this set. Lots of damage-based removal sits in the 2-3 range, so I’m curious to see if bumping up the initial damage of Flaming Table will make it a more attractive situational pick over more versatile spells like Loot By Force.
I also cleaned up the templating on its last ability. It’s important that it sticks around into the player’s main phase, not just their upkeep, so they have the option to instead cash it out for mana with Spitts, Furnace Keeper. I don’t expect this to happen often, but it would be a huge flavor fail not to let it happen at all!
(BUFF) Fungal Titan
5+*/6 → 6+*/6
I think I played it too safe with Fungal Titan’s original stats, even though it’s been a very effective common bomb. Bumping up its base power should help further solidify its role as a big stompy trampler.
(BUFF) Call Upon the Moles
Mill 2 → Mill 3, doesn’t whiff on Moles
Call Upon the Moles now mills an additional card up front, and can return Moles (aka Mole Mercenary or technically Harlowe, the Sublime) in addition to lands. This is mostly for flavor, and to reduce the feels-bad moment of milling away your start player in a Mole/Food deck, but this can also become an insurance policy for moles that fall in combat.
(BUFF) Battle Porridge
+1/+1 when activated, target player mills two cards
Gravekeeper Ira isn’t intended to be much more than a filler common, but it still felt like he was working too hard for too little payoff. Now, his mill trigger puts two cards into a single graveyard rather than milling each player for one, and once a graveyard hits that ten card threshold, he’ll become a 4/3 menace. His play pattern is now slightly faster and slightly stronger, which should give him a bit more of a niche in dedicated mill/reanimate decks.
(RARITY) Various rarity adjustments
This balance patch aims to bump up more pet cards that feel a bit too strong to be showing up so often, while dropping the rarity of removal and utility cards that deserve more play. While I originally included the set’s cycle of Sagas at common because I love Sagas, Leviathan Tournament and especially Fall of the Fell King have proven to be extremely strong. Similarly, Resplendent Kenku started at common because I wanted Green decks to have consistent access to a mana dork, but it does so much and there are so many other ramp options that it feels safe to move it to uncommon. I’m especially excited to see how Brig feels in the common slot, since Azorius control decks have so far struggled with single target removal.
Common → Uncommon
Uncommon → Common
Uncommon → Rare
Rare → Uncommon