Point Updates
Update 1st august 2022
(as announced by Thomas Ribet on Facebook)
- Fireball 3pts (+1)
- The Abyss 2pts (+1)
- Hymn to Tourach 1pt (+1)
- Triskelion 1pt (+1)
- Library of Alexandria 3pts (-1)
- Mox Sapphire 2pts (-1)
- Mox Ruby 2pts (-1)
- Mishra's Workshop 1pt (-1)
Fireball and Disintegrate are still in the Top3 most played cards (after Maze of Ith). Red in general is still widely played & over-splashed because burns spells enable decks to swiftly change roles from defence/removal to offence/wincon. Disintegrate offers 2 quite unique abilities in 7pts (can’t regen & exile) and so we feel it’s the most interesting card of the two. For these reasons, we decided to ramp up the red X-spells again one step at a time and Fireball is now 3pts.
Hymn to Tourach was previously on the Points List and it was removed in November 2020. The reason for removing it back then was that X-spells were absolutely crushing the format (Braingeyser was only 1pt, Fireball & Disintegrate 0pt!) and we realised that Discard was a good tool to disrupt these late game back-breaking X-spells. Since then, the X-spells have been going up in points (Fireball is going up again this time!) and in parallel Black decks have become more & more popular and very powerful. Black is now showing in 50% of the decks, Mono Black is straightforward to build and we think that Hymn to Tourach back to 1pt will create more tension when deck-building and also it should bring down Black decks/splash below 50% of the metagame. Note: Mind Twist at 3pts is clearly on the watch-list but we decided to go one step at a time. Also, we think that Mind Twist and Black in general still has an important role to play in and against Control decks.
The Abyss (along with Moat) has seen less play over the past year. However, The Abyss is still showing in about 10% of the decks and 5-colours Control decks "Vogt" style have been repeatedly making Top16 and winning online Tourneys. Yes playing The Abyss in 7pts means making very radical deck building choices (like playing near creature-less) and yes we want prison & heavy control decks to be part of 7pts. However, we also acknowledge that The Abyss can be very frustrating and very unfun in a format where enchantment removals are very scarce and not available for all colours. Last, with Mishra’s Workshop going down we feel it is balancing out with The Abyss going up.
At 2pts, Mishra’s Workshop sees some casual play in only 5% of decks. As a 1-off and in a format where most very good artifacts require activation costs (Icy, Tomes, Coffin, Skull of Orm…) we want to try it out at 1pt. This may open some room for some new Shop/artifact heavy decks both in Control & in aggro which could be an interesting addition to the format. Artifacts can be super efficient but they are also weak and we think the format will adjust to that without too much struggle (see Champion’s deck in Madrid playing cards like Shatterstorm…).
Triskelion is the best creature in the format and it is played in nearly every deck (except maybe in White Weenie). It can kill itself so it is auto-immune to exile, stealing & copying. It is an efficient removal, a key combo engine, a colourless Wincon, there are many ways to recurse him back forever (Archaeologist, Reconstruction, Animate Dead/Skull…). The card is so good that in some Prison/Control decks it is the only Wincon and not too long ago, regardless of the power-creep, it was still a key staple even in Vintage.
In terms of deck-building, Triskelion at 1pt is functionally similar to Maze of Ith at 1pt: about 50% of the decks will probably still play it but deck building will be even more tense and the format more diverse as a result. With the exception of Shop decks (because Workshop is going down to 1pt), everybody will have to make some very meaningful choices and that’s the reason why we are confident that this is a great change for the format.
Library of Alexandria sees absolutely 0 play at 4pts and, we admit that this was somewhat a virtual ban. We are not big fans of dice-roll cards: “Oh it’s in my opening hand so I guess I win” but we acknowledge that such plays & situations are also a part of Oldschool Magic. At the same time, it is very possible that in 7pts, Library turn1 may not be a definite win either. The format has less redundancy than normal Oldschool, it has more room for poor or inefficient draws and without all the Moxen it is possible that Library in the first 4 turns often leads to some discard. Anyways, we think that some amount of Library can only widen up the overall experience of the format. Time to dust off your Candelabra of Tawnos & your Ley Druid!
Moxen have been an ongoing debate in 7pts since forever. The vibe of the format is what it is mainly because it is slower than normal Oldschool. In 7pts, decks have time to develop & to plan for the long term. Most decks rely heavily on less efficient high cmc cards or more situational spells like we used to play back in the days and we really like this, we don't want the format to only become a speed race. Also, due to the nature of the format and the 1-off constraints on Duals & Cities, multicolour decks require more time to develop and to stabilise their mana base and so, as a consequence, Mono-Coloured decks have been consistently performing very well. For a long time, it was clear that reducing Moxen would only exacerbate this and favour even more the Mono-Coloured decks. Looking at the numbers more closely, both Mox Sapphire & Mox Ruby saw 0 play at all due to the high competition in these two colours. With Fireball going +1pt again, we feel it’s the correct time to open up the format and the deckbuilding to some more Moxen. Loyal to our “one-step-at-a-time” approach, we decided to consider the Moxen’s power individually rather than as a group. With 3 Moxen still at 3pts and Sapphire/Ruby now at 2pts, the list is not as simple and elegant as before. It is a little more complicated to remember, but we are confident that everybody here is passionate enough to understand the reasons and to remember why not all Moxen are pointed the same. To conclude, Moxen are now virtually at 2.5pts average which is probably the correct number. Some decks will now be able to play 3 Moxen which is a new meaningful strategic direction. Moxen are not anecdotal anymore and we believe it will broaden up the variety of builds and of course, we know that the debate is not over. ;)
Good deck-building & happy summer holidays!
Discussions
Earlier Updates:
The format was created in April 2020 and in the beginning there was more frequent updates until July 2021 in which the points stayed the same for a full year. The points should from now on probably only be updated once a year after the World Championship each summer.
See this Google Sheet for all point updates over time since the beginning.