Points Announcement: Tarkir Dragonstorm

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student (+1 to 1)

There was a lot of interest in the ‘flip walkers’ when Modern Horizons 3 was previewed. Modern showcased the high ceiling of Ral, Monsoon Mage and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, the latter has been quite prevalent in 7 Point Highlander as well.
Tamiyo on the other hand immediately caught the attention of the 7 Point Highlander community and rightfully so, as it has become a mainstay of the Grixis archetype (and most blue decks) being a proactive 1-drop that provides a mana-intensive yet steady stream of card advantage, it also a good draw at nearly any point of the game.
The planeswalker half is also no joke, especially when it can be flipped early with the help of baubles, brainstorm, cantrips, gush etc. Tamiyo has also found a home in blue moon and combo strategies.
The combination of being cheap, providing inevitability, and make almost all removal on it trade unfavourably both in terms of cards and mana, we feel, is more than enough to move it to the points list.

Nethergoyf (+1 to 1)

Speaking of proactive 1-drops Nethergoyf might just be king. It has made its way into various Jund, RB, Esper and Grixis decks. Much like Tamiyo it is a great draw at any stage of the game, trades evenly or up vs most removal and it can be quite resilient to non-exile removal thanks to its escape clause.
Nethergoyf is the largest pile of stats you can play on turn 1 for a single mana. Its less conditional than Delver of Secrets, its bigger than Wild Nacatl, it doesn’t have the same synergy requirements as Deaths Shadow or Phyrexian Dreadnought. Consequentially it is an early stonewall against aggro, a viable single pressure point against combo and allows players to sit behind counter magic or removal while riding Nethergoyf to victory. That is too much for a one-drop to do..
Another reason to point this is the ‘Black-Package’ a lot of players are leaning towards by default when building their decks, since black now provides some of the best disruption, removal and now also some of the highest quality threats. We would like players to start looking at other colours as options when it comes to threats.

Planar Nexus (+1 to 1)

Yet another Modern Horizons 3 card finds its way on to the points list! Planar Nexus saw a bit of chatter during preview season as a ‘cool’ card with some interesting interactions with Locus, Tron and some other fringe lands. Little did we know how central it would become to the ‘big-mana’ archetypes, especially Eldrazi which has performed at a high level since the release of Modern Horizons 3. Obviously this can be attributed to the printing of several new cards such as Kozilek’s command, Glaring Fleshraker, Sowing Mycospawn, Eldrazi Confluence among others, however, our philosophy with pointing big mana decks is to attack the mana accelerants: Planar Nexus has had quite the deckbuilding impact on both shops and Eldrazi land base with several lands becoming sol or even tri mana lands by the mere presence of Planar Nexus. Planar nexus provides huge amounts of additional mana without any mana investment to play and is extremely difficult to interact with, dodging the typical hate pieces to fast mana decks such as Null Rod, Force of Vigor or Energy Flux.

Ragavan. Nimble Pilferer (-1 to 1)

Ragavan has a short yet fabled history in Magic as a whole seeing play in almost every format it has been legal in. When Ragavan moved to 2 points it still continued seeing play for a few months, then a large influx of cheap 1 and 2 mana threats quickly pushed it to the wayside, so much so, that it has almost completely disappeared from the format. Times have changed now, decks have many more options for cheap threats that block Ragavan well and cheap removal options. Taking a point off Ragavan will be a boon to red based aggressive decks which have absorbed a lot of pointing’s (Phlage, Fable, Forth).
Ultimately there are now a selection of extremely powerful 1 mana 1 point threats, Nethergoyf, Tamiyo, Deathrite Shaman, Ragavan, they have different strengths and weaknesses and we think players now have a more interesting choice of which to play and which to leave behind for other powerful options,
Needless to say we will be keeping a close eye on Ragavan as it can still slot into a lot of existing high performing archetypes, but again we would like to see players have more options and make meaningful decisions when it comes to threat selection for their decks.

Natural Order (-1 to 0)

7 Point Highlander offers a wide variety of strategies for people to choose from and is a big selling point of the format. Sadly an archetype that we don’t see much these days outside of a few dedicated pilots are green based decks centred around mana-dorks and green threats. The popularity of Fury and free counter magic has made both the set up and execution of a Natural Order plan more risky and consequentially it see’s very little play.
We would like to reward players for exploring this forgotten side of the format. We are aware that Natural Order saw some experimentation in the Time Walk deck and can be used to fetch powerful threats like Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Nadu, Winged Wisdom. We believe now is the correct time to make this decision, as Time Walk and Nadu decks are not overly successful at present. Furthermore Natural Order does have a real deckbuilding cost as you need a critical threshold of green creatures you’re happy to sacrifice as well as often un-castable powerful, potentially game-ending threats.

Oko, Thief of Crowns (-1 to 1)

Gone are the days when Oko, Thief of Crowns was a commonly played card even at 2 points. We feel de-pointing this card will incentivize players to explore options other than Blue-Black or Red-Black based decks.
Oko was a menace and we aren’t denying that it is a powerful card but we feel, after looking at the data from the past year, it has been one of the worst performing 2 point cards and it can safely come down a point.
There are now more removal options for planeswalkers (e.g. long goodbye, get lost), higher quality 1-2 drops to pressure the board and green-based tempo decks and mana dork decks are not prevalent or overperforming. It is the safest time in recent history to give these decks a powerful tool and perhaps create interesting choices for players considering Sultai or Temur decks instead of Grixis.

Dig Through Time (-1 to 1)

Players who played 7 Point Highlander or just Magic in general after Khans of Tarkir can attest to the power of the card-advantage delve spells i.e. Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. Both of these cards have been banned in Legacy and Modern while being restricted in Vintage, the power level is definitely there.
But in today’s world of spending every fighting for board presence, oozing every last ounce of value from your graveyard and other high quality card advantage options (Flame of Anor, Brainsurge and Stock Up) being printed means taking time out to add two cards to your hand for 2 points just does not cut it.
Blue based control decks are going to be hit by the Tamiyo pointing and this de-pointing provides an option to counter balance that impact. Dig Through Time is also a plausible alternative to tutors for combo. We are aware that this can provide a power-up to combo decks such as Thassa’s Oracle or Flash, so we will be keeping an eye on that but given neither of these strategies are particularly dominant at present, now is the right time.

Force of Will remains (+1 to 2)

Deliberation on Force of Will continues both in community channels and committee discussions. We proffered this option as a different vector to target the blue based tempo-midrange archetypes that have enjoyed a very long and reliable tenure as a top tier option.
At this time there are some pretty obvious threat options that are under pointed (Tamiyo, Nethergoyf) and we would like to see the impact of those changes first.
We’re keeping Force of Will on the table if blue based tempo/midrange overperforms and will continue to evaluate the impact on other archetypes such as control and combo before pulling this lever.

Expressive Iteration removed (+1 to 1)

Expressive Iteration much like Force of Will is a core part of the Grixis decks, however, it seems the quality of card advantage spells have kept up so pointing a card like Expressive Iteration would cause it to be shelved and replaced by cards like Stock Up. Pointing’s are not supposed to be banning’s and we think players will find it hard to justify spending a point on Expressive Iteration.

Mental Misstep added (+1 to 1)

We’ve had some involved discussions regarding Mental Missteps with various points of view and possible consequences being discussed. We wanted to keep the community in the loop about the same and be transparent. If you’ve got a view about Mental Misstep, just as the first time we watch listed the card, community sentiment is a consideration. So please speak up (respectfully of course) and let us know your thoughts, especially if you are newer to the format or if you’re view has changed since the first watch listing of this card.