The latest Unwell Kingdom draft playtest turned out to be a bit lopsided, but this was mostly due to draft strategies. I participated alongside three other players who were well-versed in the set, and I think everybody got tunnel vision hoping to try something new, instead of reading the cards we were actually opening. One player forced Hoard cards as hard as they could, but ended up spreading themselves too thin to accommodate the 5-color Frara, the Chromatic. For my part, I’ve been curious about the lack of simic decks in past playtests, so I started snapping up blue and green cards uncontested. The resulting simic Mole Stompy deck steamrolled the night thanks to some extremely lucky pulls–all 4 copies of Mole Mercenary and multiples of Call Upon the Moles and Merka made for a Food package with the consistency of a constructed deck!
Otherwise, there weren’t many cards that stuck out this playtest as being too overpowered. As expected, several Concentration Auras felt a bit overtuned with the mechanic’s recent rework. This balance update aims to ease those back a bit, nip some unintended interactions in the bud, and totally replace a few cards & effects that no longer felt like they fit with the set.
Here are the patch notes for this month:
(CUT) Lay Low → (NEW) Short Rest
Lay Low was this set’s Heroic Intervention, but it felt…. bad. Tapping and putting stun counters on your own creatures is too steep a price to pay and doesn’t feel much better than if your board got wiped anyway. Rather than try to salvage this effect, I opted for a different flavor of wide-board effect.
Introducing Short Rest! This instant no longer offers indestructible, instead untapping all creatures you control and giving them hexproof. It can still be used to protect against targeted effects, but I expect its main use will be untapping to create surprise blockers. Crafty players may even find ways to double-dip on tap abilities this way. Overall, the card feels more open-ended, without the painful drawbacks, and should feel like a better fit for its rare slot.
(CUT) Brink of Exhaustion → (NEW) High Council Summons
Like Lay Low, Brink of Exhaustion proved that putting stun counters on your own creatures, for any reason, is annoying enough to turn most players away. This one was a Sleep with more steps, and the stun counters meant it was best utilized in two ways: pure stalling for a control deck looking to stabilize, or tapping down your opponent’s board for a lethal attack (when stun counters no longer matter). Ultimately, I decided that this set already has other ways to spend roughly the same amount of mana to regain tempo (eg. Split the Party) or close a game (eg. Animate Munitions). And now that Short Rest was a cleaner depiction of Brink of Exhaustion’s intended flavor, there was room for a brand new blue rare.
Introducing High Council Summons! This card supports a few goals in a nice, straightforward package. Wizards have still been struggling compared to other themes, and blue lacked a solid draw spell aside from cheap cantrips or stronger multicolor cards. I also wanted another way to make Wizard tokens, since they’re fun and enable so many other cards. High Council Summons combines all of this at once, providing a small body and drawing one card minimum. If you have one or two other Wizards already, it kicks into high gear! I expect this card to find a home in Izzet and some Azorius decks to keep cards flowing.
(NERF) Fish Drop
Removed flash
Since Concentration no longer breaks on the enchanted creature being targeted by a spell or ability, Fish Drop became much more difficult to answer. Previously, it was easy enough to wait a turn for your creature to phase back in, then target it with an Inspiration token or by equipping onto it, but that’s no longer possible. Also, it’s unlikely to break Concentration with damage, since a Fish Dropped creature becomes a 1/1!
With all this in mind, it made sense to remove flash from the card. Now that it’s much more reliable at neutralizing creatures, letting it come in at instant speed felt cheesy.
(NERF) Unbreakable Bolt
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Unbreakable Bolt is a scary card when it sticks around for a few turns. During a recent playtest, one player went for any aggressive burn cards they could draft, and closed out a few games with this one. Now that it’s even more difficult to break Concentration, I’m going to try adjusting the mana cost to three red pips. This should make it come down later on average outside of dedicated mono-red decks, while still being a potent threat!
(REWORK) The Chroma Tree
Completely new abilities/cost
The Chroma Tree’s first iteration was word salad. I wanted this to be a flashy build-around card for those brave enough to play all five colors (or tricky enough to find other ways to cheat it into play!), but it failed to make a splash. I imagine most playtesters’ eyes glazed over trying to figure out what it asked from them, and even I never mapped out an ideal scenario cards to play for free. It also stepped on the Hoard mechanic’s toes as an engine to replay cards over and over, but did so in a way where it didn’t work with hoarded cards. I knew it was time to go back to the drawing board.
The new version aims to be bigger and flashier, with clearer immediate payoff: Inspire 10!! The threat of an immediate +10/+10 burst to any creature(s) will likely be enough to win games on the spot, but even if that’s not enough, it also lets you cast a free card on each of your turns from just about anywhere (including the hoard). All this comes at a mouth-watering cost of 8 mana, still including all five colors, but it now has convoke to help players pull it off. If this new design is successful, expect a Design Deep-Dive breaking down the ways different color combos in this set can all take their own paths to its conclusion! But for now, let’s just see if it’s finally attractive enough to get picked in a draft.
(REWORK) Master Zell
Reworked around exile and Inspire synergies
Master Zell was one of the early designs of this set that never quite seemed to gel. She’s a magical prankster of a character, so when I tried to translate that into card form, I leaned into tricky redirecting and untapping! I liked the idea of using her as a tech option against Equipment and Inspire decks, by changing the targets of equip abilities and Inspiration tokens, respectively. Unfortunately, the first version of this was oppressive, as back then she only cost 2 mana and her tap ability only cost to activate. Players also kept thinking they could “steal” equipment and buffs in this way, though rules as written only allow redirecting to another valid target (eg. equipping onto a different creature your opponent controls). Between these less fun interactions and subsequent nerfs to her mana cost, she faded out of play.
Rather than attempt to keep fiddling with numbers, I’m going to cut my losses on the original design. Now that more of the surrounding set has been fleshed out, I’ve redesigned Master Zell to instead support Red Inspire and White blink subthemes! Instead of a straightforward blink effect that returns its target at the end of the turn, Zell’s is cheap up-front but asks you to pay to re-play the card. Both this and her triggered ability are very open-ended, and I expect crafty players to find some truly sneaky ways to utilize her.
(REWORK) Gin, Drunken Monk
2-mana 1/1 → 3-mana 2/2
I love Gin’s ability to block while tapped, but having that effect on a 1/1 body felt pretty underwhelming without additional help from Equipment, Inspiration, etc… At the same time, I noticed that White had more 2-drops and fewer 3-drops than any other color in the Unwell Kingdom, so it made sense to look for contenders to bump up. Gin was the perfect candidate!
His new 2/2 body for 3 mana makes the combat math much more dynamic. He now hits for 4 thanks to double strike, and is better at blocking and potentially surviving. Opponents will now have to think twice before swinging any 1/1s Gin’s way!
(REWORK) Crown of Madness
Removed “targeted by spells or abilities” clause
Crown of Madness was another Aura affected by the Concentration mechanic updates. Originally, it included a clause forcing the creature’s controller to discard a card if it became targeted, which was meant as a consolation prize if an opponent found a way to target their own creature and remove the Crown. Of course, now that targeting no longer breaks Concentration, this clause threatened extra discard repeatedly. As such, it’s been removed.
As a minor bonus, this freed up room on the card to include reminder text for “goaded”. This is the only goad card in the entire set, so it’s not fair to expect all players to have it memorized ahead of time. In general, playtesting has showed me the value of including reminder text wherever possible, even for fairly common mechanics.
(REWORK) Sprout, the Intertwined
Tap ability reworked into a “Discard or Sacrifice” ability
Sprout has existed in a strange no-man’s land between a tough green reach creature and a cascade enabler that seems like it wants to turbo-charge an Izzet wizards deck. Despite the effect being flashy and unique, it wasn’t enough to convince players to splash colors in either direction to include it.
Fortunately, the Unwell Kingdom has handy solution for exactly this: multicolor cards with one color to play and another color to activate abilities. In fact, red was the only color to not already have a half-green card like this! By splitting Sprout’s cost and changing its tap ability to a single-use “discard or sacrifice” ability, it can now be a real consideration for decks in either color. Decks will still want red and green mana to truly make the most of it, but I’m very intrigued at the prospect of an Izzet spellslinger deck treating sprout like an instant-speed Cascade burst, and ignoring the creature body entirely!
(RENAME) Transcendent Calculation → Higher Learning
Y’know. Cuz flying.
“Transcendent Calculation” always felt like a temporary name to me. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it did a decent enough job of conveying the theme of a wizard rising into the air, surrounded by scrolls and tomes of magical knowledge! “Higher Learning” gets to the point quicker, and better matches the playful tone of this set.
(REWORK) Grimmtail’s Ferry
Triggered ability changed to tap ability
Grimmtail’s Ferry was the only card in the merchants cycle without a tap ability for its draw. It’s been reworded better match the others. This limits it to one per turn, which is acceptable and maybe preferred for a green draw engine.
(REWORK) The Indigo Broker
Trigger now accommodates “discard or sacrifice” effects
The Indigo Broker is a bit of an awkward card, converting sacrificed creatures into bone counters to pull them back from the grave. It’s intended to work well with low-CMC “discard or sacrifice” cards like Brent and Fleetfoot Spy, but those cards are often just as happy to be discarded directly, which means no bone counters! This meant that even in “ideal” sacrifice decks, the Broker struggled to get enough bone counters to function without extra support by Bagzo’s Corner.
Updating his effect to also trigger on discarded creatures should open up new lines and make it easier to accumulate bone counters (and makes Brent synergize even better than before!). In exchange, the tap ability now costs one additional black mana, which will hopefully incentivize players to save their bone counters for higher-CMC creatures.
Also, you may notice some art adjustments. I did a test print last year to check how a few cards will look, and this one was absolutely too dark to see clearly. Those vibrant, deep indigos may look neat digitally, but don’t translate well to ink.
(BUFF) Nasty Pete
2/1 → 3/1
Nasty Pete is functionally a burn/removal spell with his ability to force specific blocks, and I played it safe in his first draft. My concern was that red Inspire decks, which were already looking like the strongest archetype in our earliest playtests, would be able to scale Nasty Pete up into something problematic. However, after playing more with the set, I’ve learned that knowing when to stock up on Inspiration tokens vs. when to spend them on creatures like Nasty Pete is a very skill-testing question. Starting Nasty Pete at 3 power should let him feel like a better use of 4 mana as baseline removal, while still leaving room for Inspiration and other clever interactions!
(BUFF) Harlowe, the Sublime
Effect applies to abilities in addition to spells
Harlowe’s original wording of “instants, sorceries, and enchantments” mirrors many of the other spell-slinging Wizards across the set, but it felt pretty bad with a different subtheme: “Discard or sacrifice” effects, which are technically abilities. To prevent Harlowe’s text from becoming an entire grocery list, I decided to let players spend mana of any color to “cast noncreature spells or activate abilities”.
This technically means the effect now applies to artifacts and planeswalkers too, but I think that’s fine. For 5 mana, this rare should be doing something impactful, and I’m curious to see if the added versatility makes a splash.
(BUFF) Wizard Token
Blue → Blue/Red
Created by:
Since this set features quite a few token creatures, I believe it’s important for each one to feel mechanically distinct. The Wizard token’s greatest benefit is its subtype, enabling other cards that care about Wizards on board, but it felt a bit too similar to the other blue 1/1 token, Crewmate. Making the Wizard blue and red gives it a bit more visual identity, tying it to the broader Izzet Wizards theme. It’s also strictly a buff in this set, since there are no negative effects based on card color, but powers up cards like Splendor which scale based on the number of colors among permanents you control! However, those cards are mostly in green, so this is mostly an aesthetic change.
(FIX) Tourmaline, Far Traveler
Only return nonland permanents
One playtester noticed a loophole with Tourmaline’s -X loyalty ability where she could -0 to return a land from graveyard to hand or battlefield. This was clever, but certainly unintended and strange for a Dimir card to be a powerful ramp engine. Because of this color mismatch, and the way it bypassed the minigame of building and cashing out loyalty, I’ve decided to limit her to nonland permanents.
(FIX) Shield of Faith
Extra toughness now extends through end of turn
During one game, my opponent used Shield of Faith perfectly, buffing his creatures out of range of combat damage and turning my attack in their favor… until we both realized that, as written, the extra toughness would disappear at beginning of the end step (but BEFORE the turn actually ends), meaning those creatures would die to the damage still assigned to them. We agreed to play the game out as though I had already fixed the card. It now sticks around until the next turn’s upkeep, meaning creatures are safe to tank damage and survive.
(FIX) Garp Garp, Lord of Bones
Corrected tap ability timing
Garp Garp, Lord of Bones has been a tricky card to pin down. The intended effect has been clear from the start: a late-game closer that combines Inspire and sacrifice themes and threatens a hasty burst of direct damage! However, this requires some wonky wording in practice, since there needs to be a window between creating the Inspiration tokens and sacrificing Garp, so players have a chance to actually use those tokens on him. Early drafts used triggers like “when Garp Garp attacks” and “before the damage step”, which proved extremely confusing for players wondering why he wasn’t dealing combat damage and not knowing whether blocking mattered… It was a mess.
Changing it from a triggered ability to a tap ability at sorcery speed SEEMED to work. Playtesters had an easier time using Garp as intended, but unfortunately this opened him up to new awkwardness. Tapping him post-combat would Inspire 3, but he wouldn’t be sacrificed until the opponent’s next combat step. That feels weird and not terribly flavorful.
Instead, I’m going to swap “Activate only as a sorcery,” with “Activate only during the first main phase,” which should ensure that the action all happens during your combat and doesn’t require any extra information to be tracked across turns.
(RARITY) Various rarity adjustments
Uncommon → Rare
Rare → Uncommon