Wizards of the Coast is surprisingly open about what goes on behind closed doors. Between admitting design flaws and announcing release dates, Wizards certainly hasn’t been shy lately. We’ve even gotten a few sneaky hints about what exciting things the future holds. As usual, the latest of these reveals came from none other than MTG’s lead designer, Mark Rosewater.
The Council of Colors
Earlier this week, Mark Rosewater devoted an article to perhaps the most aptly 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 popular color palette. Ideally, this should ensure that everything stays balanced, which is more important now than ever.
Because Magic exists in an eternal world, color variance and color warping are more important than usual. One slip-up could give Commander decks tools they weren’t meant to have forever, and potentially change the way they play. Thankfully, the Council of Colors does its best to avoid this, while still opening up meaningful new possibilities where necessary.
Previously, the Council of Colors allowed the introduction of Impulse Draw to improve red’s card drawing capabilities. Likewise, white decks received more once-per-turn draw effects to ensure they could compete. While this has helped stabilize the power of each color in Commander, there are still some issues.
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.” Fortunately, this problem has already been technically solved, as it has been on the Council of Colors’ radar for some time.
According to Rosewater, solutions to Red’s problem will be tried out “in future sets.” Exactly when that future will arrive remains to be seen, but it could be sooner than we think. In fact, there’s a non-negligible chance that we’ve already seen the first of these new problem-solving designs.
The Red Revolution
Of all the colors in MTG, red is perhaps the most playable color. You can see this when you look at all the MTG formats, as they all have surprisingly good mono-red decks. While they are often powerful, the vast majority of these decks follow the same low-cost aggressive strategy. Part of the problem is that this game plan doesn’t last forever.
After an incredibly aggressive start, red decks often struggle to make a presence felt. Sure, there are some huge spells like Apex of Power, but even those are more for aggro. Red is really, really good at powerful explosive turns and damage, but really not much else.
Unfortunately, this has made high-level red cards feel rather monotonous and often disappointing, as they often blindly serve that goal. Cards like Urabrask are interesting, but they’re just another value machine for magic tricks. These are a dime a dozen when it comes to mythic rare red cards.
Fortunately, Wizards of the Coast already seems to be trying something new with Duskmourn: House of Horror. Rather than just offering a powerful temporary ability, Screaming Nemesis’s effect lasts the entire game. Hopefully this will give red decks more staying power in Commander after their initial burst of activity.
It’s currently unclear if Duskmourn is the start of the “future sets” that Rosewater spoke of. Once the set’s spoiler season begins on August 31, we should have a clearer picture of any changes. However, since Rosewater didn’t mention Duskmourn by name, it’s likely that these designs are still a long way off in the development pipeline.
Read more: WotC responds to concerns about cards designed for Commander
