Card adjustments, in Limited
This past week, I was as surprised as anyone to see that recent adjustments to a Limited format, despite having horrible color imbalances, were actually pretty fun. High variance, but fun.
Changes were made to rebalance Alchemy Horizons: Baldur’s Gate. Blue was so unplayable that they buffed many blue cards and only nerfed a few other cards.
I gave the format a spin over the weekend to see how the changes affected the format. Truthfully, it barely moved the needle. Most of the adjustments tweaked cards that were fringe playables, or borderline filler, and made them slightly better, but still didn’t push the envelope enough.
Blue didn’t improve nearly enough for me to want to draft it. In fact, I was a little less happy when I felt forced to draft it.
The biggest adjustment was…
The biggest adjustment was the nerfing of one of the format’s best commons, and likely black’s best common, Guildsworn Prowler. The adjustment turned the card into playable but unexciting. The card’s power level came from its ability to pressure the life total early, force an exchange early, and leave you up a resource. Now players can mostly ignore its one power and trade with a token or something if needed later in the game.
To make it up to black they buffed a bunch of other fringe playables that, yet again, just make them a bit more palatable. The most helpful buff was making Eyes of the Beholder a full mana less. While it’s not great now, it’s solid and I don’t mind playing a copy, much like Farideh’s Fireball. Eyes of the Beholder is a tad better because it gets through the various indestructible cards like Blessed Hippogriff.
Speaking of Blessed Hippogriff, this is my favorite nerf of the list. While the card is still quite good and wouldn’t change in my pick order, the indestructible ability was too powerful on early turns for only one mana. On turn three or four you could attack into a blocker, pay one to save your creature but also follow up with another creature and put yourself pretty far ahead on the board. Now it’s likely going to cost you your play for the turn in the early game, so it’s not as backbreaking.
The changes didn’t change the color balance much
Overall, the changes didn’t change the color balance much, and blue became only a smidge better. One thing they didn’t do was nerf the really busted rares. I would have liked to see something like adding a full white pip cost to WW3 for a card like Lae’Zelm Githyanki Warrior. I got to the point playing against this card that, unless I’m a massive favorite in the late game, I should scoop on the spot. It’s nearly impossible to interact or beat this card when it resolves on turn four, and its specialized ability is so cheap and generates value. At least make the card less splashable by adding a second white in the cost. It would still be strong at five mana but gives players more time to develop the board before it takes over the game.
Another serious offender
The Hourglass Coven is another serious offender, and while I think adding a colorless to its cost might be a little too far, it wouldn’t be out of the question. The other way to nerf the card would be to slightly lower its stats, perhaps making it a 2/2 that makes 1/1s or a 2/3 that makes other 2/3s. Its current ability to make multiple must-kill threats, while it stabilizes on almost any reasonable board state, is too strong. I’d like to see it scaled back.
Blue needs more help!
Blue needs more help, and rather than add a 1 or 2 toughness on a few creatures, it probably needs one or two really strong blue commons. One adjustment I would make is reducing the cost of Sword Coast Serpents from UU5 to UU4. This would give blue a much stronger uncommon as something to put you into blue early. I wish blue had a flagship Uncommon like perhaps a or Mulldrifter that pushed people into blue. As of now, you don’t leave much on the table just ignoring blue altogether, even after the adjustments.
They adjusted all the Dragon Orbs to produce any color of mana, which helps some, but those cards are mostly not that good. Jade Orb of Dragonkind can be good in the right deck, while the rest I’d rather avoid. Unfortunately, all the mana-fixing stuff they fixed like Navigation Orb and Lantern of Revealing would be better off being removed from the pack, as people would normally do better not putting them in their decks. They could have gotten more aggressive with Lantern of Revealing and reduced its activation cost to two. It still wouldn’t make it much more playable, but I’d be happy to include a copy in my four-color slow decks now and then. The format is too fast and punishing to take turns off developing mana early.
I’m not sure how I feel about the precedent it sets for changing Limited sets. On the one hand, I like it for rebalancing, but they need to be more aggressive in their attempt. On the other hand, I hope they never touch a real Standard set and only use this on the Alchemy Arena-only sets. Obviously, it becomes impossible with paper cards. I like the idea of fixing something broken, but I don’t want it exploited in a way where they pump out sets faster and fix them later. If used properly, this could be a way to add shelf life to existing MTG Arena sets so that we can enjoy drafting them too long before they get scale.
My recommendation for the next time
My recommendation for the next time a set is this imbalance would be to add a premium common, uncommon, and rare in blue, and remove some of the draft filler. Cards like Water Weird that were merely fine should have been removed for an actual first-pickable card. I’d prefer to see rebalancing by changing how the format drafts. An idea for a blue card would be something like U2 2/2 when this creature enters the battlefield target creature your opponent controls perpetually gets -2-0. This would be quite strong and maybe needs to be uncommon, but at least it fits the set and draws you into blue early.
Next time I hope they go harder because the draft experience was mostly the same the second go-around. If you hadn’t gotten around to trying out the rebalanced set, I’d say don’t bother since not much has changed and the format’s problems are only mildly closer to what a more balanced set would look like.
Next week we should have some more previews to look at, and my Worlds testing will officially begin as soon as a chunk of the new set is out. I can’t wait.
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