Points Announcement: Duskmourn

Strip Mine (-1 to 1)

For some time Strip Mine has been the worst performing 2 point card, often acting as a detriment to players opting to play the card. In conjunction with Wasteland, the 3 point package has only been realistically affordable for decks seeking to exploit them as part of locks (looking at you Lands). Its usage outside of these strategies has dropped over time, exacerbated by the printing of more potent aggressive cards that require heavier mana investments, like the Initiative creatures.

We hope this will offer a potent mana disruption aspect to aggressive decks, serving both as a way to punish decks opting for a higher mana curve and as another angle of attack against hand-based combo decks. It will also create meaningful deckbuilding decisions as new curves accounting for Strip Mine are discovered.

We are wary of the potential effects of this change and the optics(?) of having both cards at 1 point. Unfortunately, we have already seen the effects of Wasteland being unpointed and the lack of impact Strip Mine has had at 2 points. This change will serve as an experiment to determine where each card should settle moving forward and potentially provide us a solution for this issue.

Psychic Frog (+1 to 1)

We as a community were ready for Modern Horizons 3 to have an impact on our format and it’s safe to say the set has delivered! One card that is oft discussed is the modern day interpretation of Psychatog: Psychic Frog. This card is finding its home in several existing strategies and even being splashed in non-blue decks. It offers a steady stream of card advantage, proves resilient to many red removal spells and can maneuver through combat very effectively.
The fear of ubiquity means we will keep a very close eye on it, however, the lack of tournament data is why we are putting it on the watchlist.
Though the card is immensely threatening and can have a warping effect on the game it isn’t without weaknesses. We would like to see whether this card is better than other 0 point options in UB(x) decks and give the community time to deck build with (or without) it.

Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury (Staying on the Watchlist +1 to 1)

Continuing with the topic of Modern Horizons 3 we have another card, that pretty much right from spoiler season, was highlighted by several discussion threads as a strong include for everyone’s ‘7 point staples box’.
The card made its way to the watchlist very quickly after release in the Bloomburrow announcement, but due to a lack of data we have not reached a verdict yet and will continue to observe its performance in the time leading up to the next update.

Bolas’ Citadel (Staying on the Watchlist +1 to 1)

We want to continue assessing the impact of the Tinker de-point that occurred during the Outlaws of Thunder Junction announcement has had on our format. Bolas’ Citadel, which is a cut above the rest of the other tinker targets, will stay on the watchlist for the time being.

Uro, TItan of Nature’s Wrath (Removed from the Watchlist -1 to 1)

Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath was brought under the microscope for a potential depointing back to 1. After much deliberation we have come to the conclusion that this card deserves to be a 2 point card. Over the past few updates we have taken measures to diversify deckbuilding decisions and to make players think about card choices instead of having powerful cards make that decision for them. Uro provides a level of inevitability that few other cards can match, it fuels its own escape and we can foresee the blue-green titan making its way back into several already existing archetypes that do not need the help if it does go down 1 point.