Revolution Balance Changes: November 2024

Written by PTM

This month we’re trying a new type of article: monthly balance change patch notes for Revolution. We hope this isn’t just informative, but that it might help custom Magic designers—some of whom are looking to get their sets into Revolution—with their designs.

Sometimes a single card will be changed, and sometimes a package will be changed, depending on the needs of the format. This means that these articles will be organized based on what motivated a change much more than being organized by individual cards.

For information on any card not pictured, refer to Manifesto, Revolution’s Scryfall-alike.

Black-Colorless Integrate

• The “Integrate” keyword

• Data Weaver

• Chronicle of Extinction

• Rooftop Slink and Extravagant Patisserie (and Stone Circle)

• Iris Pledge

• Lurking Vyrkolakos

• Tithe to the Machine

• Silverbone Chromate and Mirrormeld Spire

The BC Integrate deck was the undisputed bogeyman of the format in October. Extremely versatile, with high-powered disruptive pieces alongside inexorable card advantage, the deck simply did not have any matchups where it was the underdog aside from the mirror. Many of its constituent parts, and the archetype itself, were the best things to do in the format, centralizing the metagame.

Let’s start with the integrate mechanic itself. At its baseline, integrate exiled cards and you chose somewhere to store them—with the decision-making points being where to put them to maximize the benefit as some cards get bonuses if integrated onto. However, as you could integrate onto lands (notoriously challenging to interact with), players would store integrated cards on their lands until they had a Data Weaver, at which point they found themselves with 5+ additional cards available to be played.

This was not the intended play pattern of the mechanic, and was not desirable from a balance perspective—so integrate was changed to nonland permanents only. With this change, more interaction is introduced for and against the archetype, and players are less overwhelmed by card advantage.

Data Weaver was significantly impacted by the change to the integrate mechanic. However, the velocity of the card advantage it gave players access to was often overwhelming, and even with the integrate change there were concerns over the raw rate. The change to limit it to once-per-your-turns means that not only are you faced with interesting decisions, the card becomes less of a ubiquitous midrange or control piece. A play pattern this change also sought to avoid is using Data Weaver to turn a player’s own counterspells against them.

Chronicle of Extinction was a near-ubiquitous control (and midrange) piece and didn’t only have a home in BC Integrate. Of particular concern was Chronicle was very punishing to play around: if you held creatures back, your hand would be attacked. If you played some, the edict would get them. And, if you committed hard and tried to overwhelm the opponent, your board would get wiped. With the wipe mode powered down slightly to be more in line with the others, other strategies have become significantly more viable in the metagame.

Rooftop Slink, while not itself an integrate card, was extremely disruptive in concert with other pieces, notably Extravagant Patisserie. With a Patisserie, a turn 1 Rooftop Slink would transform on turn 2, leading to a number of non-games when unanswered. Patisserie (and Stone Circle) were both flagged in previous rotations as being concerns due to creating free permanents (for example in the Demon of Darker Paths Storm deck from the 2023 Revolution World Championship), and so both received a small change to make the token generation slightly less free. Rooftop Slink prompted the question “On what turn is it acceptable to have a hasty Synthetic Specter?”—with Curators agreeing that 2 is too early, but that if players jump through the necessary hoops, turn 3 is fine.

Iris Pledge was an extremely versatile edict effect which at base rate was acceptably powerful. However, when you paid its reflexive colorless cost, it was able to generate a disproportionate amount of card advantage: permitting you to cast opponents’ early creatures, draw spells, removal, and even planeswalkers. The change to its third reflexive mode improves the card’s symmetry and creates more interesting decision points for those casting it, while making it less individually powerful.

Lurking Vyrkolakos, while not only a BC Integrate mainstay, saw its greatest success as a sideboard card for the strategy which further stymied aggressive strategies’ chances. Between its ETB and attack triggers, the card would often generate a 5-life swing, leaving a 3-power lifelinker behind. The changes to the card make it more of a proactive tool that can selectively hate graveyards while reducing its immediate impact on the game.

Tithe to the Machine is a Doom Foretold-style topend card that produced problematic play patterns, and was more oppressive and with more control over its use afforded to its player than intended. A major factor was that even after Tithe to the Machine “popped”, you could integrate it to its own trigger and cast it again off of a Data Weaver.

Silverbone Chromate and Mirrormeld Spire were not actually changed for balance or power level reasons, but were adjusted at designer request due to the changes to the integrate mechanic.

The BC Integrate deck was hit fairly heavily overall. Since the changes, we’ve seen integrate cards in a larger variety of strategies, with Data Weaver still appearing on occasion, and we’re confident that a new home for the adjusted mechanic and cards will appear.

Builder of Monuments Combo

• Builder of Monuments

• Voyage to the Siren Sea

This deck leveraged Builder of Monuments’ tap ability to tutor up copies of Voyage to the Siren Sea, taking enough extra turns to land a kill. This combo was tricky to interact with and not intended by the set designer of Theros: Age of Trax, and so was a target for adjustment.

Builder of Monuments had some interesting knobs. Its tap ability meant that anything which caused an untap allowed all copies of that card to be tutored to the field. While tutoring 4 Security Initiatives to the field wasn’t necessarily problematic, for future proofing reasons, this was adjusted to be an attack trigger instead.

Voyage to the Siren Sea was a little too easy to take extra turns with. After some discussion it was changed to be a card draw ability, which is more at home in a tempo deck than combo, allowing you to bank the ability to refill your hand until later turns.

Mono-Red Heroic

• Efimia of the Horse

• Rock On

The Mono-Red Heroic deck was another big player in October, using “heroic” creatures like Efimia of the Horse and Rathomar Forerunner. Blisteringly fast, it was able to generate a turn 3 kill—turn 4 through multiple kill spells. With a lot of synergistic pieces, the deck goes both wide and tall, and was extremely challenging to interact with before it killed you.

Efimia of the Horse is a powerful 1-mana engine, with an Omnath-style gradually escalating ‘heroic’ trigger. Combined with cheap pump spells and Auras like Reply to the Call or Thrice-Blessed Boon you can generate a threatening board state out of nowhere. Given her strengths, “ward—pay 2 life” was more punishing for actually interacting with her than preferred, so it was removed while keeping her other knobs dialed up.

Rock On is the premier pump spell of the deck and consistently added between 5 and 9 power to an attack. Swapping its +2/+0 and +1/+0s around means its floor is slightly higher and ceiling slightly lower. +4/+0 and first strike is still a great deal for 1 mana, so we’re keeping an eye on it, but for now it’s in a spot we’re much more comfortable with.

Ruins

• Forgotten Cultivator

• Tyrant’s Remnants

Ruins as an archetype has performed very well throughout its tenure. Adjacent to dash in that Ruins are immune to sorcery speed removal and can attack as long as you invest mana each turn, they instead develop out your board while being unable to be ‘hard cast’ later.

Forgotten Cultivator was a huge part of the deck’s ability to overwhelm opponents, ensuring you always had another way to spellcharge your Ruins in hand. To reduce the inexorability of the deck, Cultivator was adjusted to remove the ETB component of its trigger, but was compensated with a stat bump.

Tyrant’s Remnants is an enabler for the Ruins archetype, turning our Ruins into hasty threats that can mostly attack the turn they come down, in addition to being an anthem. Because Ruins are so hard to interact with, it’s been adjusted to only grant haste and not +1/+0, to provide opponents a little more time to mount up a defense.

5-Color Shrines

• Nykthos, Architect of Gods

• Shrine to Ephara

• Shrine to Erebos

• Shrine to Iroas

• Shrine to Karametra

• Shrine to Keranos

• Shrine to Klothys

• Shrine to Kruphix

• Shrine to Nylea

• Shrine to Pharika

• Shrine to Phenax

• Shrine to Those Forgotten

If the BC Integrate deck was the best control deck in the format, 5C Shrines was the silver medalist. Only three cards—Shrine to Keranos, Shrine to Phenax, and Shrine to Those Forgotten—were adjusted for power level reasons. The other changes were by designer request as the Shrines package was not functioning as intended—with only a few seeing play while the weaker cards did not. For that reason, I’ll focus on those cards.

The broad changes to the Shrines package prioritize making the Shrines strategy more of a niche thing that requires significant investment, focusing on synergy between the Shrines. However, a few were left as minor players in other strategies, as their baseline effects were acceptable. A way to smooth the more synergistic intended play pattern of the Shrines archetype was through the change to the keyword triggers, allowing effects like Shrine to Iroas or Kruphix to turn your Shrines into their own assertive gameplan.

Shrine to Keranos was broadly unproblematic—looting once per turn is not something we were concerned with. However, its ability to draw a card while your hand was empty was not its intended play pattern. With this fairly minor tweak, the card will function as intended.

Shrine to Phenax posed an interesting challenge. Its exile ability was stronger than desirable, but it was a key piece in mill decks, meaning that we wanted it to retain its baseline trigger. Switching it to “Scry 2” means that the Shrines deck is able to look deeper for answers, while the UB Mill deck can dig for more mill.

Finally, Shrine to Those Forgotten presented an immediate burst of mana, often locking up a game, which was not desirable for a 2-mana card. Entering tapped means it is not simply a ritual effect, and the 5C Shrines deck is slower to close games out.

The 5C Shrines deck is still seeing play now, and is making better use of a wider variety of the cards intended for it—leveraging synergistic effects to execute a powerful lategame.

Evridiki, Queen of Pidae

Evridiki is a powerful 2-mana legendary creature whose triggered ability on combat damage to a player was originally intended to include herself. This has now been corrected.

Gustav, Pactmaker

Gustav was not significantly on our radar until late in the Duelists of Vereaux rotation. If you landed him early and indulged immediately (such as through Shrine to Keranos or Leyshard), you were largely able to ensure you had the exact card you would need every turn, including additional copies of Gustav.

In line with his flavour of forming pacts with Demons, he was changed to tutor up spells, Demons, and Glaunas—the planeswalker with whom he forms a pact in the Duelists of Vereaux storyline. Additionally, he had his mana value and stats adjusted to compensate—earning him immunity from one of Revolution Eternal’s premier kill spells, Fatal Flaw.

Satyr Arsonist

Satyr Arsonist’s ETB has received a quality-of-life adjustment to no longer require you to target your own nonbasic land if your opponents have none.

Security Initiative

Security Initiative’s ETB had the undesirable ability to tap an opponent’s land during their upkeep. This was flagged during rotation, but was left to see how heavily played it was.

Sleeper Strix

Sleeper Strix’s return-to-hand trigger led to combos with otherwise unproblematic cards including Selective Truthseeker. With this combo, a player could tap down as many nonland permanents as they had blue mana at instant speed.

Through discussion, the surveil upgrade was identified as a way to keep the card’s place as a player in its limited strategy, as well as having a home in constructed as a tempo card.

Stolen Secrets

As an instant that ‘drew’ up to 4 cards for 2 mana, Stolen Secrets was overperforming significantly, leading to adjustment to reduce its rate.

Closing Out

While this is an extensive changelog (and I don’t anticipate we’ll see another this long for a good while), Grand Prix Bastion D’Orlet in November was incredibly diverse, with a well-balanced showing of aggressive, midrange, and control strategies.

We’re really happy with where the Standard environment wound up for Duelists of Vereaux’s last regular Grand Prix, and we can’t wait to see what the next rotation brings.

Because December’s Grand Prix and League play are going to be Revolution Eternal, we shouldn’t see extensive Standard changes next month. However, you can expect exciting news about rotation soon!

There’s a huge range of reasons cards can change, from their power level, interaction with other cards and strategies, to plain old being too luck dependent. We’re constantly learning through emergent gameplay where the power and the knobs on the format are. Wizards of the Coast having the Play Design team constantly testing and adjusting is a necessary investment, and we’re incredibly grateful to Revolution’s dedicated playerbase for helping us constantly work to make the format the best it can be.

If you want a chance at breaking the format, come on down and get brewing!

Stasis Conquers the Field at GP Bastion D'Orlet!

Written by AllWhoWander

Revolution, November 2024

The third tournament of Revolution’s twelfth rotation concluded this past month at Grand Prix Bastion D'Orlet! After another slate of much-anticipated changes that totally shook up the metagame once again, players returned to do battle at the Bastion D'Orlet! Twenty-six players participated in this grand melee, and the big winner in terms of metagame share was aggro. After changes to a number of cards, most notably Chronicle of Extinction, many players decided it was time to try their hands at this much-maligned archetype. 26 players brought 19 different decks with them, with four of those players bringing the deck to beat: RW Legends. This aggressive midrange deck sought to use Love of a Lifetime to tutor out legendary haymakers like Ardor or Elektes to pressure the opponent's life total; while remaining resilient to more controlling matchups by leaning on value enchantments like Revolutionary Class and Storming the Palace. When confronted with this potent and brutal deck, players had two options: to out-aggro the aggro deck by playing something even more explosive, or to slow things down with a control deck and eke out value on the margins while desperately trying to stabilize.

For coverage of the finals complete with commentary, check out this video by Coveted Peacock (and see some of her other Revolution video content while you're there!)