Points Announcement: Marvel Superheroes

The One Ring (+1 to 2)

The One Ring has been powerful for some time but has increasingly proven itself to be a multi-format all-star and most certainly has become a huge player in 7 Point Highlander. With the recent depointing of Enlightened Tutor, it’s come even more to the forefront, as it so effectively offsets the downsides of Enlightened Tutor. While we did discuss reversing that depointing, we think that The One Ring itself is the problem, rather than the synergy between the two.

When The One Ring was first pointed, it was for being a powerful colourless card advantage engine which we feared would find its way into every archetype. Putting this card to 1 point at the time successfully stopped that from happening. However, as time went on players started to figure out that a card that buys you time, while drawing you towards your outs can be a standout in almost any deck. We started seeing The One Ring as the premium top end card advantage in aggro, combo, midrange and control decks. In fact, at the last major event it was in more than a quarter of all decks, and everything from UW control, to the top end of Mardu aggro.

There are some ways to punish this card’s play patterns such as Orcish Bowmasters, Sheoldred, Narset, Null Rod, or simply pressuring your opponent so much that they will die to the life loss. However, in the majority of games, a resolved The One Ring is completely game defining and the protection trigger alone often buys more life than The One Ring will ever cost. Casting this card very often invalidates all previous game actions and decisions. Additionally, it is very easy to “reset” The One Ring, stifle it’s triggers or gain life to offset the downside to take over the game.

Prior to this announcement we were cognisant that The One Ring may have been a powerful source of “non-blue” card advantage, which would be valuable in the meta. However, despite being a colourless card, The One Ring also sees it’s home most often alongside blue spells to bounce or stifle it, and is at it’s weakest against the UB decks which have a variety of tools to punish it; countermagic, Bowmasters or Hullbreacher. We still expect The Ring to be a powerful option at 2, but one people reach to as a build around, rather than a generically powerful card, and one that feels more in line with the other game defining 4 drops like Minsc and Boo.

Fastbond to 1

The depointing of a card as powerful as Fastbond does attract a lot of scrutiny both from the committee and the community.

The Lands archetype has gained tremendously from its depointing (alongside other de-pointings and printings) and we can see that in the popularity and success of the archetype. We have also seen the 3 piece combo of Fastbond, Zuran Orb and Crucible of Worlds in Breachbond and some other niche combo decks. At present, the results of these decks show them to be strong but not dominant, however, the fact that is consistently showing up in non-traditional places is something we are aware of.

The recent pointing of Mental Misstep and de-pointing of Enlightened Tutor has made this card more consistent and resilient. However, the games Fastbond wins on turn 1 and 2 are very rare, and come with some significant deckbuilding costs, Zuran Orb and Crucible of Worlds aren’t as individually powerful as the average 7ph card. We do see that like most high roll combo games the turn 1/2 kills feel like non-games when they happen, which isn’t great.

We believe that while Fastbond is a powerful combo card, the archetypes built around it aren’t currently overperforming, they’re powerful, but balanced, which is how we want most decks to feel. If we see lands based archetypes start to overperform, Fastbond is an obvious target to bring them back in line. Therefore while it was discussed if we should point this card, we felt the time was not right to pull the trigger.

Caves of Chaos Adventurer to 0

Caves of Chaos Adventurer and Undermountain Adventurer are often touted as the most controversial “initiative pointings,” and the “initiative deck” is certainly not the format bogeyman it once was. Caves of Chaos Adventurer has also had several powerful ‘best in slot’ widely played zero-point red 4 drops printed since its pointing, such as Headliner Scarlett or Pyrogoyf.
The card has proven that it is no slouch in the past, and aggressive red based decks are also in a good spot right now. Therefore it’s not the time for the change, however, Cave of Chaos Adventurer is a strong candidate for a future depointing if we want to give some power back to those decks.

Forth Eorlingas to 2

Forth Eorlingas! can be used by aggro decks to pull further ahead early on by simply casting it for 2 after playing a 1 drop or by fast mana decks to get a board and card advantage engine all from one card, or by control decks as the most efficient fireball for reach. Lastly it’s powerful rate gives it a home in all midrange decks that can cast it.

With the recent strong showings from Boros aggro decks across various events, and the extremely high presence of forth in every archetype that can cast it, we discussed pointing this card, but we will hold off for now and keep a close eye on RWx decks overall, as they seem to be in a healthy metagame position.

UBx Discussion

Where there is an eternal format a powerful blue based aggro/tempo deck will always be present, and 7 Point Highlander is no different, Grixis and Dimir decks have ebbed and flowed in format dominance over the years but have always been present.

Over the past few updates we have gone down the route of pointing various threats that the archetype plays over the key interaction or card advantage pieces it runs. We feel the archetype has finally settled in a healthy spot. Although newly printed threats have found their way into decklists they haven’t pushed the archetype over into the dominance we’ve seen from it in the past.

We discussed a broad range of options for what changes we’d look at if we did need to bring UB back into line, and while we don’t feel it’s necessary, we talked about Emperor of Bones, and the newer black threats like Moonshadow, as well as revisiting the free blue permission like Force of Will or Daze. We remain undecided on what the best approach would be, but don’t feel it’s necessary given the overall metagame health at the moment.

With a very heavy heart we are announcing that Vi has decided to step down from the 7 Point Highlander committee, her passion for the format has been truly inspiring.
She has worked to direct the format in a positive direction and done so much to cultivate the community.
We thank Violet for all her hard work and contributions in her tenure as a committee member!