See the Planeswalker changes for additional changes: Version 21 Contender Changes
Change Overview
- Introduction of Junctions - Powerful Planeswalker-augmenting enchantments.
- Focus on Enchantments - A bunch of enchantments were overhauled and some effects that interact with enchantments were also looked at
- Tokens Deemphasized - Green 1/1 Spirits and 3/3 Elementals have been removed and other tokens consolidated. The cares-about-token Contender Raevel (Now Ravelle) reworked.
- Common Sway cards - Each color now has a common Sway spell.
- New Common Land Design - Three color lands with a small drawback, giving all color pairs options for lands.
- Many Others - All the usual balance and gameplay tweaks
Introduction of Junctions
- Ethereal Prison replaced with Protective Spires of Oria. I'm curious about this tempo-y mix of abilities. Both abilities seem strong on their own, but I do not know if they are worth the card disadvantage of playing a separate Junction.
- Port of the Bloodlender replaced with Port of the Bloodlender. My thinking is that Junction abilities should be similar to spells that cost 4-6 mana. The plus is a twist on the typical draw spell and the minus typically costs 5 or 6 mana. I'm looking forward to the first time someone swaps Contenders.
- Eternal Citadel replaced with Ocna, the Dead Citadel. This one doesn't have a plus ability and I'm curious if that will be a problem. I'm hoping that the versatility of the card draw (or three damage to the face!) will make the card good enough so that the more "fun" reanimation ability isn't too much of a drag.
- The Shapelands replaced with The Shapelands. This Junction is a self-enabling combo package that also fits well with a few of the red contenders. Forcing both players to "rummage" can also help disrupt the plans of opponents when they're down to their last few cards. The enchant land version of Shapelands was popular in its own right so I'm happy to keep the effect around.
- Brillia’s Terrace replaced with The Terrace Freed of Man. This Junction is a sandbox card that enables a variety of decks. I was looking for an effect that put pressure on the opponent but didn't just wreck creatures, so I hope the sacrifice effect can accomplish that. I don't really want it to only hit artifacts and enchantments because I don't want Junctions to be dependent so much on what the opponent plays. The untap ability has a mild deck building cost so that it isn't a full windmill slam in the greedy five color decks.
Focus on Enchantments
- Establish Order replaced with Merchant's Army. I'm trying out a replacement token-making card that works by attacking planeswalkers rather than holding back. I've decided on Mercenary flavor to perhaps enhance the feeling of Planeswalkers arriving and battling each other as well as the plane defending itself. I suspect this card might be on the strong side but I think I like cards that are strong, but aren't either crazy aggressive or super game-slowing.
- Vanquish the Mighty replaced with Prize-Winning Griffin. Nobody wanted to play Vanquish. My wife wanted help design a card and I gave her some general ideas, and she settled on a handsome griffin. I think this should be a very good card (especially with a copy or two of Hold Captive) and I'm continuing to investigate whether "enchanted or equipped" is a good theme to push.
- Æthershield replaced with Control the Currents. The original card was just a design experiment that had awful gameplay. People complained about it often. The new design adds more of the "noncreature" decks theme and should be the type of Johnny card that lets people plan out very unusual turns.
- Drag to Grave replaced with Visitation. Like Aethershield this is another long term "bad card" that I just hadn't decided on a new slot for. This new design also incorporates some of the role of Phantom Visitation (see its replacement in Sway section). Not a super high impact card, but a useful one. I wanted to improve the options for black enchantments to support the BG gold card, Gorgon Enchantress.
- Gralanth’s Boon replaced with Might of the Forebearers. The "grants Forerunner" auras were always a little awkward, and I had previously tried buffing them to make them worth it. This ended up being kinda degenerate, and once I depowered them a bit they became unappealing again. I'm trying out using more of the "cares about forerunner" technology while giving this (and the green card) effects that work well with the power-heavy forerunner creatures.
- Marauder’s Fury replaced with Stamina of the Forebearers. The other part of the "cares about forerunner" enchantments, I'm trying out a design that lets high power forerunner creatures keep attacking.
- Untamed Avenger replaced with Heartwood Elder. People often misplayed Untamed Avenger, though others did enjoy the flavor. Since I'm introducing five big new enchantments as well as some more enchantment themes, I felt it appropriate to add a card that flexibly interacts with enchantments. The use of a +1/+1 counter allows this ability to go on a creature that can play out at any time. Putting niche removal on an ETB trigger on a large creature can make it hard to wait for a target without falling behind. Even worse is when you play your ETB creature for no value and the opponent plays a target the next turn.
Tokens Deemphasized
In addition to these changes, Ravelle the BG Contender was reworked to not care about tokens or use tokens. See Version 21 Contender Changes
- Call from the Hills now Call from the Hills. Version 21 aimed to consolidate tokens and I decided on using the Mercenary tokens over Soldiers. I'm also trying a slightly unusual card design that isn't quite a "choose one" card. It's tricky to maximize but always possible to get some value out of.
- Muster Forces now Muster Forces. Another part of the token rework, and possibly a power boost as well. I think this card will be appealing to players. I didn't quite want to go up to 5 mana (or only one token) so we'll see if this is the right price for this effect. I may need to scale up ways to deal with fliers.
- Free the Soul now Scrub Sorcery. While moving this card away from token usage, I also included some anti-graveyard choices. Might consider shifting this down to common at some point.
- Second Spring now Second Spring. Double Cultivate didn't exist yet in Magic and the Contender set is hungry for mana. I'm curious how good this card will be. Peng Ping and Brilia both want all the lands they can get and Aoron can also make use of more mana to cast all the cards he draws.
- Speaker of Spring now Speaker of Spring. Along with reducing the use of tokens came the opportunity to design a sweet new mythic. People are loving all the five color stuff in the set and he's the highest end ramp spell you'll ever cast.
- Vineshaper Guardian now Vineshaped Guardian. This design should serve a similar function to the old one but without the token and without the feel-bad when you cast it with forerunner. Although this ability has been on other creatures, it hasn't yet been on an otherwise vanilla.
- Larkland Visitant now Changed Larkland Visitant. I liked the old design, but wanted to finish cleaning up the use of green spirit tokens. The new design should have similar aggro-slowing potential and has the "simplicity bonus" of using one of the set mechanics.
- Soulfused Treant now Changed Soulfused Treant. The previous design was built to work with spirit tokens, and with those being phased out I needed to tweak the design. This new version works either by sacrificing or by playing a ramp deck.
Common Sway Cards
White already has a Sway common Pureheart Call so the other colors are the ones gaining here. I'll be looking into reworking the designs of the Sway uncommons, as I've found Sway is best on cards without a lot of other choices.
- Subvert now Subvert. I had to keep this counterspell limited to something that wouldn't hit planeswalkers, as countering planeswalkers feels a little too bad in this set for a common. This should fit well into a control type deck while reinforcing the themes of the set.
- Phantom Visitation now Thought Collection. With some of its functionality moved over to Visitation above, this was repurposed to fit into the common sway cycle. Psommegos was hungering for more discard options to synergize with his +1 ability. Games of with Contenders often result in a few extra cards in hand, so I'm curious if this ends up being useful or not.
- Revel in Victory now New Commands. Going along with the common sway cycle, Red players get the ability to reload their hand and their Contender at the same time. This card is expensive but either fits into Forerunner decks or the heavy ramp decks.
- Hunt the Priests now Fresh Prey. Switching from fight to a one-sided hit is a significant boost to the power level of this card. The fight version had a hard time working with the overall high power/low toughness creatures in the set. Felt like a good fit for the "Sway at common" cycle.
New Common Land Design
I go through new designs for the common lands pretty frequently. There are only five slots for common lands, which limits the possible designs. I didn't want to rework the set to include ten land slots, as that would fill the packs with lands and I'd have to evict a bunch of other cards. At the same time players are frequently bummed out that their color pair doesn't have any color fixing available.
That lead me to tri-lands. The trilands in Alara and Tarkir were great limited picks, so I didn't want to downshift them to common as-is. I thought about lands like Adarkar Wastes, but tracking damage can be annoying. Therefore I landed on a "refuge" variant where you take one damage on ETB. The mild cost should discourage two color decks from taking tons of them, allowing a few to float to the greedier multicolor decks that are happier to pay the life cost.
Other Changes
- Abernath Wavecrasher now Abernath Wavecrasher. People love Forerunner and I'm comfortable putting more of it into blue. Cards like this help keep the set simple for people new to the set. Wizards of the Coast also seems to be abandoning Prowess, so I'm starting to reduce my use of it as well.
- Crypts Adversary now Crypts Adversary. Nobody played this, but I'd like to keep the Adversary cycle varied in size/cost. I'm trying an especially big creature to see if that'll pull people in.
- Midnight Visitor now Midnight Visitor. Black had a little too much early aggro and Midnight Visitor's old design (just Menace) didn't tie into the themes of the set as strongly as others. The new design slows down the aggression a bit while also playing into Black's "life as a resource" theme.
- Underchapel Baroness now Underchapel Baroness. Players liked her dangerous playstyle but found the cost to be a little too high. By standardizing it at 2 life, she still kills her controller reasonably fast but also interacts positively with various sources of life gain in the set.
- Wazani Broker now Wazani Broker. Just a little too automatic in its old state, I'm hoping that adding a mana cost will make it feel like more of a choice.
- Pilgrim’s Reward now Pilgrim’s Reward. Rare to Uncommon. Brillia's Terrace needed to be shifted up to rare to work with the Junction replacement, so this moves down into the uncommon slot. It can potentially draw a pile of cards but needs a special deck to do so, which seems like a nice spot for an uncommon.
- Wandering Seer now Leader of Last Rites. The exile version of this card was meant as a low-risk way to help beat opposing Arise and graveyard shenanigans, but it hasn't been played as often as I'd like. By rephrasing the ability as something that can also be used on yourself, I hope I can make it just appealing enough for people to make use of it. Also fits in with Ravelle's new design, as she's looking to stack her library with the best cards.
- Epharan Voyage now Epharan Voyage. I feel committed to the sorcery-speed aspect of the design, but the card wasn't strong enough. I'm moving three down to two to see if I can get people to play it.
- Sisters Yamazaki now Sisters Yamazaki. The goal of this card is to have several identical sisters, like Brothers Yamazaki, and I hope this multikicker-like design will meet that objective. I messed around with some "make a copy of me after attacking" or other that made copies, but they always felt like you needed to keep one Sister save and attack with the rest. This final design should allow all the sisters to operate on even footing.
Unprinted Changes
These two cards received slight creature type tweaks but weren't different enough to warrant printing.