Effective as of the announcement (16/08/2026) (Please confirm with your tournament organizers that they are using the updated points)
The Hobbit Points Update:
The format has settled into a balanced state where a wide variety of macro archetypes are having success. There is however less variance within these decks than we’d like, and the overall power level of the top decks in the format is having a stifling effect on innovation, and making the games themselves extremely swingy and trend towards low interactivity. We’re taking a pass this update and bringing to formats top dogs down a little bit, focusing fast, game defining cards, and trying to promote a little more interaction in the format. We hope to see the impact these changes have, and have left ourselves more room to adjust with another update before the Event 2 End All Events in October.
Changes
Fantasticar (+1 to 1)
Thassa’s Oracle (+1 to 5)
Strip Mine (+1 to 2)
Emperor of Bones (+1 to 1)
Fantasticar +1 to 1
It didn’t take long from it’s printing for the Fantasticar to make waves in all the formats it was legal in, and highlander was no exception. It’s combination of low interactivity, low opportunity cost and extremely fast clock has made it a top tier backup plan for a variety of combo decks, including breach and storm, and catapulted them back to the top of the metagame, in a way that has proved to be too resilient. Primarily we want to see where storm ends up when this isn’t free and also what combo decks continue to play it at a point. We’re still keeping a close eye on this one.
Thassa’s Oracle +1 to 5
Prior to Nationals many had written Thoracle decks off as a substandard combo shell compared to more points flexible options such as breach or decks with more serviceable midrange plans such as walks. Originally we welcomed the resurgence of Thoracle as an interesting metagame call that took advantage of a field that had largely forgotten about it.
As more time as passed, we’re taking the view that the increased abundance of efficient 2-for-1’s has materially changed the power of the deck, giving it the ability to function almost as a control deck with a mana efficient hard to interact with finisher. It’s win-rate compared to other combo decks seems to support this.
A few options were considered including Uro and Demonic Consultation, ultimately the thing that all Thoracle decks have in common is Thassa’s Oracle, so it joins Time Walk and Black Lotus in the 5 point combo enabling bucket and let the players decide how the deck is built from there.
Emperor Of Bones +1 to 1
When Barrowgoyf was pointed to address the power of the black threat core, Emperor of Bones was strongly considered. While we have seen aggro decks increase in popularity and success since Barrowgoyf received a point, Emporer of Bones continues to be an auto-include in UBx tempo decks as well as making appearances in nearly every midrange deck that includes black.
Alongside its ubiquity, Emperor creates very swingy game states in the mid to late game by giving a pseudo-combo finish to any game that has involved the exchange of powerful creatures. There are whole decks built around Shallow Grave & Goryo’s Vengence effects, Emperor gives that power while also functioning as an early game threat that comes with free graveyard interaction.
Strip Mine +1 to 2
When Strip mine was de-pointed, the available crucible effects to support it taking over a game were lackluster in power and fewer in number. Since the printing of Badgermole Cub, Icetill Explorer (and now Mole Man) we’ve seen the “Strip-Waste” package escape it’s previous home in lands (and some taxes decks) and make its way into nearly every green midrange deck.
Ultimately this change in context has restored Strip Mine to it’s previous power level. We’d like to see the land denial strategy return to decks expressly built around it (such as lands) and become less prominent in any deck playing green.
Cards Discussed
With this section we are attempting to provide the community with more transparency about some of the cards and archetypes we discussed in our meetings to give a more detailed picture of our views on the format.
Fastbond +1 to 1
There has been a lot of buzz in the community about land denial strategies and Fastbond certainly lives in the public consciousness as being strongly associated with big flashy turns where one player ends up with their deck on the table and the other loses their lands. We closely interrogated if Fastbond has actually increased in playrate or win-rate and in short, it hasn’t. Lands (and we mean true lands decks that run Exploration, Maze of Ith et all) is a part of the metagame but it is not disproportionately represented and is not winning above its playrate.
Pointing Fastbond in practice is a targeted point at lands (and to some extent fringe decks such as wheels). It doesn’t change how many copies of Fastbond appear in a tournament, it only changes the power of the deck which plays it. As explained in the Strip Mine section, we have pointed the land denial package that is becoming widespread with lands absorbing some collateral. A further nerf to the archetype is not necessary so Fastbond stays at 0.
Fantasticar +2 to 2 / Yawgmoth’s Will +1
Storm has proven quite resilient to recent pointings and the advent/success of “gluten-free” storm has kept the Tinker-Citadel package alive and competitive. As described in the Fantasticar section, we want to see the impact of the 0 to 1 gap before making a conclusion on 2. We’re also considering some past de-points such as Yagmoth’s Will that, at the time, saw very little follow up play, but have since seen a number of powerful options printed (Beseech the Mirror, Storm Scale Scion, Tezzeret Cruel Captain, even small efficiency gains such as Stock Up and Hex Magic). We will watch how storm performs after this pointing and have a few ideas on how to respond should it continue to “over enjoy” success relative to the rest of the meta.
Force of Will +1 / Daze +1
The UBx tempo core continues to be a long term meta-player and while some recent pointings have created some real choices in threat selection, the continued printing of new powerful options such as Moonshadow, Super Shredder and Bilbo have meant the deck continues to leverage the combination of hand disruption, cheap removal and free countermagic to tournament success. We had a lot of discussion about putting a higher price on the free countermagic core of the deck in the form of Force of Will and/or Daze.
With Storm and Thoracle where they are at present, we want to see if the points assigned (Fantasticar + Thassa’s Oracle) are enough to ease the pressure to play Force / Daze as well as considering the natural hazard of pointing interaction at a time where combo decks are powerful. Thankfully we expect a rich amount of data in the near future due to the high density of upcoming tournaments and this will inform where we move on these cards.
Thank you for reading and feel free to share your thoughts with committee members! Our next announcement will be October 4th, the Release Weekend of Reality Fracture.
