Wizards of the Coast is surprisingly forthcoming about what happens behind closed doors. Between admitting design mistakes and revealing release dates Wizards certainly hasn’t been shy recently. We’ve even had a few sneaky teases about what exciting stuff the future has in store. As usual, the latter of these reveals has come from none other than MTG’s Head Designer, Mark Rosewater.
The Council of Colors
Earlier this week, Mark Rosewater dedicated an article to what’s perhaps the best-named MTG design team: The Council of Colors. As the name suggests, this dedicated team oversees and maintains the order and integrity of Magic’s beloved color pie. Ideally, this should make sure everything stays balanced, which is more important than ever nowadays.
Thanks to Magic living in an Eternal World, color pie breaks and bends matter more than usual. One slip-up could give Commander decks tools they weren’t really meant to have forever more, potentially changing their feel. Thankfully, the Council of Colors does their best to avoid this, while still opening up sensible new avenues where needed.
Previously, the Council of Colors has facilitated the introduction of Impulse Draw to boost red’s card draw capabilities. Similarly, white decks received more once-per-turn draw effects to ensure they can keep up. While this has helped to stabilize the power of each color in Commander, there are still some problems.
In the recent Council of Colors article, Rosewater admitted that Red still has a problem in MTG. Specifically, there is a lack of “unique strategies for higher-rarity red cards.” Thankfully, this problem has technically already been solved, as it’s been on the radar of the Council of Colors for some time.
According to Rosewater, solutions to red’s problem will be tried out “in future sets.” Exactly when this future will appear currently remains to be seen, but it may be sooner than we think. There’s a non-zero chance, in fact, that we’ve already seen the first of these new problem-solving designs.
The Red Revolution
Out of all the colors in MTG, red is perhaps the most innately playable. This can be seen when looking at any MTG format, as they all have surprisingly decent mono-red decks. While often potent, the vast majority of these decks follow the same low-cost aggressive strategy. Part of the trouble is that this game plan doesn’t last forever.
After an incredibly aggressive opening, red decks often struggle to have much in the way of presence. Sure, there are some massive spells like Apex of Power, but even these are in service of more aggro. Red is really really good at powerful explosive turns and damage, but really not much else.
Sadly, this has made high-level red cards feel rather one note and often underwhelming as they’re often blindly in service of this goal. Cards like Urabrask are interesting, but they’re just another value engine for spellcasting shenanigans. Those are dime-a-dozen when it comes to mythic-rare red cards.
Thankfully, it seems Wizards of the Coast is already trying something new in Duskmourn: House of Horror. Rather than just offering a powerful temporary ability, Screaming Nemesis’ effect endures for the entire game. Hopefully, this should give red decks more staying power in Commander after their initial burst of activity.
Currently, it’s unclear whether or not Duskmourn is the start of the “future sets” Rosewater was talking about. Once the set’s spoiler season starts on August 31st we should have a clearer picture of any changes. Given Rosewater didn’t call out Duskmourn by name, however, it’s likely these designs are still a ways away in the development pipeline.
Read More: WotC Responds To Concerns About Designed-For-Commander Cards
