We've got a few adjustments to ease out the metagame, as we start to settle into what looks to be an incredibly healthy and exciting meta. With a lot still in flux, these changes should help to bring macro-archetypes closer in balance, tune down some potentially overperforming archetypes, and give a little wind under the wings for others.
A few changes have adjusted some potential outliers in the meta, helping to keep the highest ends of decks in check.
Black Magic has had a solid showing in the past two tournaments, and while it continues to be a deck that can be hated out as needed, the list has continued to show the potential for highly explosive lines.
With this hit to Black Magic Soul Army, the most extreme lines available to the deck are removed, reducing the ability for Adramelech to make extremely aggressive pushes. It'll be interesting to see how this change effects the archetype overall, with it's tendency to pop in and out of attention.
A piece for the Blood Majik package that's started to pop up for Sharn, it's been identified that multiple copies of Altar has the potential for loops far exceeding healthy play rates.
As such, this change shouldn't be a drastic hit to lists looking to dive into the Blood Majik archetype with many chains to tutor it out, but helps to prevent the emergence of combo lists able to make aggressive openings with few points of interaction from opposing players.
A consistent power piece in Titans, Phoebe is now the first Retrieve Warrior reduced to a single copy.
While this is a slight hit to the various archetypes available to Prometheus, the actual impact on these archetypes should be minimal with the ability to eradicate Phoebe from deck with Titans Tumble, as well as the archetypes perchance for mass-eradicating cards to access as well.
Onoskelis and Mal'ady have seen a few pieces returned, bolstering their engines after the removal of the strongest starters in the game.
Last SRL list we saw a hit to Onoskelis with the full suspension of Advance Of The Fallen Armies. In this list, we can see Bolster The Fallen Forces coming back to two copies. Ultimately both act as starters, but Bolster provides significantly less consistency, with Advance's ability to tutor 4 cards offering everything you need to get your engine up and running all on it's own.
This should represent an ultimately small adjustment to Onoskelis overall, but tunes down her most extreme high-end openers, while potentially also strengthening Onoskelis's available side packages too in Mount Bane and Hell-Plains.
Mal'ady saw a big hit recently, with the suspension of Putrid Infestation Sentinel, Horrix. On his own Horrix threatened more card advantage then almost any other card generation engine with any number of supporting pieces, necessitating his removal.
Mal'ady's Horrific Harvest being removed from the SRL list certainly doesn't move Mal'ady back up to her previous level, but gives her a lot more room to make strong plays and be a relevant archetypal list in the current meta. While her days of dominating the metagame are certainly over for the time being, this change helps to let her continue to be a reasonable meta call with access to unique hate pieces.
One of the most notable control tools is back in the format, to help keep the format speed balanced.
Following the last SRL list, Mists From The Fata Morgana has returned to 2 copies, although Welcome To Alburdunn remains suspended. With a drastic uptick in aggro lists in the previous two tournaments, this return is quite welcome, and should do a lot to balance out the metagame.
The change certainly highlighted the impact these cards have on the metagame, so the format will certainly still be faster then it was with Welcome To Alburdunn available, and aggressive decks carrying a strong interactive package will continue to be top options in upcoming tournaments.
I especially expect to see a bit more attention to slower midrange lists like Mythical Beasts, Duxvox, and Majik Masks, with more ability to stave off quick finishers.
Overall, I think the experimentation of the previous SRL list and this one was effective at exploring how format speed can be adjusted, and with this change and the few other tuning adjustments, I'm incredibly excited for the potential of the MOM/WW25 metagame to develop into what looks to be an exceptionally healthy and wide open meta!