For those unaware, the Eternal developers have recently dropped a set of upcoming balance changes to several cards. These changes are clearly targeted at improving the health on the constructed format, so today we shall discuss the changes’ potential impact.

The obvious one to start with would be the changes to Bartholo, the Seducer.

(All credit for updated card images go to locopojo. They can be found for public access here.)

There are two changes here, so we will talk about them in turn.

The change in mana cost is clearly in response to the strength of the Argenport Midrange deck on Ranked play. Personally, I have piloted the deck to a 25th place Master finish in the October Ranked season, which was completely ludicrous given I was floundering in the odd-300s til I caved in and swapped to Argenport Midrange. The strength of the card is apparent – it is an evasive threat with build in Aegis protection, making it perfect for strapping on weapons and taking your opponent to town. What made the card (and the deck) particularly unfair was the ability to race Aggro decks with a turn 3- Bart, turn 4 – Lethrai Falchion sequence.

While everyone was complaining about the strength of Tavrod, I personally felt that the most unfair part of the deck was Bartholo – it was far more difficult to interact with Bartholo than Tavrod, leading certain archetypes to bend over backwards to try and include answers to the Seducer in their deck. For example, I have spotted several Rakano Warcry builds run Sword of Icaria, and several Armory builds run Talon of Nostrix as additional ways to deal with the threat of Bartholo.

Will this card no longer see play in Argenport Midrange? The card remains as un-interactive, still pairs very nicely with decks that would play Tavrod, and remains the best unit to slap weapons on. Thus, it is still deserving of a slot, since the only real matchups the additional mana-cost will really make it bad would be Aggro matchups. Midrange decks might have an easier time dealing with it as well, since they’ll have more mana (as well as more turns) before it truly gets out of hand. For example, Predatory Carnosaur may now become a timely-enough answer to a weaponed-up Bart. In conclusion, I feel that the nerf makes the card fair, but not bad.

I foresee Argenport Midrange still existing, but with a great variation in builds. There will exist one type of build that plans to go all-in on early weapons for the uninteractive win, and that deck will definitely want to run Bartholo still. However, there will likely be another style of Argenport that plans to play a more typical midrange game, where Impending Doom will seem like a better 4-drop.

Either way, the deck will still exist in some capacity due to the strength of Tavrod, and allowing for greater deckbuilding flexibility when building the deck is always a good thing. The deckbuilding process becomes a lot less engaging when there is a default “best build” of a certain archetype, with every other option having a far lower power level. Nerfing Bart would introduce more deckbuilding variety to Argenport.

In the spirit of deckbuilding, the second change to Bart is extremely exciting. A reduction in the ability cost for Bart opens up a whole new ballpark of archetypes that may want to tinker around with Bart as a search effect. The most obvious style of deck would be a bigger, slower Argenport deck that uses Tavrod as a value engine to churn out threats, with Bart as the end-game to look up Sword of the Sky King. I can’t wait to brew with this new-look Bart, and I’m sure this change will definitely improve the format.

The second big change is to Beckoning Lumen.

This change is extremely interesting to me. What makes Beckoning Lumen a difficult card to play in the current metagame is the prevalence of Auric Runehammers completely nullifying your turn 5 play. However, Auric Runehammers are prevalent largely due to the presence of Bartholo. Since the metagame will see a slightly worse Bartholo, the number of Auric Runehammers will likely lessen, and thus Beckoning Lumen in its current form may not necessarily be as bad as before. We shall see if it really plays out this way.

The reduction in cost (and statline) definitely make it worse as the only play on your turn. It now dies to Torch, Sword of Icaria, and the Lightning Storm + Vara’s Favor combination. Where it has improved is on combination turns – where you play Beckoning Lumen and a lifegain effect – because it now costs less.

Having played some Lifeforce decks, I can tell you this change is huge in many ways. Because most of the cheap lifegain effects costs two power (think Temple Scribe and Vara’s Favor), often the “combo turn” would be turn 7. However, decks don’t always consistently get to 7 power by turn 7. Pricing Beckoning Lumen at 4 would put the “combo turn” at turn 6, which is a far more realistic target.

While I think Lifeforce decks suffer from having too many things to do with too few strong lifegain options, I think this may help give Lifeforce the nudge it needs to become a decent metagame alternative in Xenan.

Not-so-hot take: Vara’s Choice is now very playable. I was playing several copies of Vara’s Choice in my Big Xenan decks anyway as additional (albeit suboptimal) Deathstrikes, and I will definitely play more of them with this new cost reduction. Costing 2 now also gives the card a lot of flexibility to see play in more Tempo-ey Xenan decks that just want more bounce effects apart from Praxis Displacer. This card will also see significant sideboard play in tournaments as well. All around a great change.

This improvement is definitely welcome, though I’m not sure it changes much in the format other than to make this card more of a Draft bomb than before. Again, it is now immune to Auric Runehammer, but the prevalence of that card in a future metagame is yet to be seen. I don’t think this is the change that will push Hooru Flyers over the edge.

While Nostrix now becomes slightly better, I don’t think this change will affect much. The effect is simply not consistent enough to see play (since you cannot guarantee you will draw the Student you are targetting. There also aren’t enough Echo cards in Hooru to justify this . The high influence cost also makes it difficult to splash other factions. Overall assessment? Not feeling it.

This is a very welcome change to a slightly overcosted card, and this change may push it into the fringes of constructed play. The obvious comparison to Purify is Torch – and the only real downside to Purify is that there are not many cards that Purify kills that deserve a silence that will not already die to Torch. The only one that comes to mind is Dawnwalker – thus, if Time decks manage to control the metagame post-balance changes, then Purify will see a lot of play. If not, it may see 2-of play as a ghetto option of limiting Makto or Tavrod craziness.

I don’t particularly want to talk about Moment of Creation – as such, I will leave it at that. We shall see if these changes pan out well for the metagame – here’s hoping they will.

Til next time!