Gold Card Upgrades:
With version 20, I've upgraded all Gold cards to Rares, and made them have an extra-planar feel. Many of these don't line up exactly with the Contenders, meaning many of them will be off-color rewards for splashing. My players seem to enjoy building greedy many-color decks and I'm happy to push the rewards for these ambitious decks.
- Barter of Bodies now Barter for Bodies. The new version allows for a all-in effect, land-sacrificing payoff. The old version was powerful but underplayed. I'm curious if this one will have enough appeal to be played.
- Everstoker now Flamekin Coalstoke. In addition to encouraging spells-matter play, this card has some sneaky synergy with Zaina.
- Explore the Tombs now Lamenting Sentinel. A build-around card with a high payoff. This works great with Psommegos, self-mill, and looting effects. I think that should be enough synergy to allow this to flourish.
- Rebel Riders of Wazan now Sisters Yamazaki. I'm not sure this is the best version of this ability, but I wanted to reward Equipment and Enchantments. She can provide a steady stream of disposable tokens late game.
- Shelter of Larkland now Sunrise Paragon. An extra-loud signpost saying "play five color decks!"
- Covebottom Stalker now Gorgon Enchantress. There's a bunch of Auras in the set and I think she should provide a payoff for building around them. Her baseline stats are solid enough that her Enchantress-ness should be mostly gravy.
- Chant of Believers cost increased from 1WB to 2WB. Powerful card, still very solid at four.
- Remade Epharan Voyage into Epharan Voyage. I'm not totally sure what the home of this card will be, but it's an effect with a lot of raw power for decks that can stall the board.
- Thrashalanche no longer hits PWs. This was a little too crippling given that the Thrashalanche can attack every turn to keep Contenders permanently at bay.
- Changed Vectis Armory from creating Spirits to creating Equipment tokens. The Spirits were really brutal and it didn't feel Esper enough to me. We'll see if Equipment tokens can also be fun.
General Updates:
- Golmorn’s Sentry cost increased from WW to 1WW. White has plenty of cheap creatures and this guy was a bit too potent for the cost. He'll still be an excellent 3-drop.
- Pious Study cost of trigger increased from 1 to 2. The abundance of tokens made this card one of the most disliked cards in the set (to play against). Costing 2 should keep the spirit of the card alive but make it a little harder to have explosive, token-fueled turns.
- Wazan Warwing now more Mercenary-specific. Along with Pious Study, this was the most complained-about card. Her new text focuses her more on the tribal element, while giving the opponent counterplay options when removing her at key moments.
- Abernath Covediver now Abernath Wavecrasher. Blue has been struggling in play rates and win rates, so I'm juicing a few of the commons in this version. Covediver was hard to read and too inconsistent in its pressure. I'm hoping this new design will be both simpler and more consistent.
- Abernath Selkie now Abernath Strangler. The other Merfolk upgrade, this tricky guy should help blue catch up. He's also a nice combo with the new Aoron contender.
- Agent of Thaegen now Dragonfly Needler. The old Agent was better when Thaegen was a "saboteur" (deal damage to opponent) planeswalker. The new one still has evasion to pester opposing contenders but is much more useful in other cases.
- Rarity swapped Choking Gloom and Exhumed Rebel. I intend to do a broader sweep of removal and rarities soon, but for now I wanted to slow down black's removal suite just a bit.
- Gralanth’s Boon lowered Forerunner from 3->2.
- Stormchannel Mage cost increased from 1R to 3R and stats from 1/1 to 3/1. This guy needed a nerf and I'm hoping he'll be easier to beat if he's harder to establish early. I'm still keeping an eye on him.
- Twice Cooked cost increased from 5R to 5RR but can now hit planeswalkers. Twice Cooked is a beast of a common, which I like, but I'm boosting its cost to make it a little less of a reliable early game ender. I'm also increasing its utility to allow for more interplay with contenders.
- Marauder’s Fury lowered Forerunner from 3->2.
- House Arrest cost lowered from 2H to 1H.
- Wazan, City of Coin added 2 to activation cost.