Ixalan Post-Prerelease Updates (Patreon)

Thanks so much to all of you who've pledged to the campaign so far. We've got some great momentum going, so I thought I'd give you all a little behind-the-scenes analysis behind a big card ratings update I made.

Moved Up

One With the Wind (.4)

Territorial Hammerskull (.4)

River's Rebuke (.4)

Adanto Vanguard (.3)

These cards represent an aggressive undercurrent in the format that needed to be emphasized more. Although no one was underestimating the power of Territorial Hammerskull, I think I underrated it quite a bit. One With the Wind is a deceptively powerful card, and like the Hammerskull, leads to some pretty uninteractive games with unbeatable starts.

Moved Down

Arcane Adaptation (1.1)

Revel in Riches (.8)

Old-Growth Dryads (.7)

Sword-Point Diplomacy (.5)

Rares are often very hard to evaluate at the beginning of the format, particularly ones that are synergy enablers and payoffs like Arcane Adaptation and Revel in Riches. For Adaptation, it doesn't look like the payoffs are really there, despite it being a tribal set, for you to make all your creatures the same tribe -- especially for 3 mana. Revel in Riches may still work as a build around win condition but it is rarely ever something you're going to want to play in sealed and will require quite a commitment in draft.

Old-Growth Dryads - is quite bad. I'm still not at LSV's (0.0) rating yet, but I think the times you'll want to put it in your deck are very, very narrow.

Feel free to let me know if anything was surprisingly good/bad at your own prerelease!

Dan