On July 26th, during a WeeklyMTG stream, it was announced that on August 6th some rebalances on Boros Energy cards will happen. To be more specific, Blake Rasmussen on behalf of Wizards of the Coasts, announced that:
“Digital on Arena is a different world with a different philosophy and our digital formats, especially historic and alchemy (well specifically those two, those are the only two are built to be quickly responsive and to support rebalances instead of bannings. So we are going to do that. So to that end are planning to rebalance several cards from the red-white energy deck, to bring historic a little bit back in line. We are going to share more about those rebalances soon, but you can expect those to take effect on August 6th.”
These are the exact words spoken during the stream and leave no space to imagination or speculation whatsoever.
Why rebalancing cards instead of banning them?
Paper Magic and Digital Magic are intended to be two different worlds that follow different rules: as mentioned earlier the tools chosen to fix digital Magic are buffs and nerfs while bans should be done on paper cards only. In a perfect world nerfing and buffing cards should produce a perfectly balanced meta. Unfortunately from what we have seen in the past years of digital Magic we are far away from that.From a MTGA economy point of view rebalances are not a great deal in terms of resources for players while they represent an efficient way for WOTC to take emergency measures without having to refund any wildcard at all. In fact rebalanced cards are completely playable in the formats where they are legal.
Boros Energy: the problematic cards
Since the release of Modern Horizons 3 many cards from the set dominated the format. In particular, the archetype of Boros Energy represented a huge part of the meta. In fact, during the Arena Championship 6, the deck had a presence of 58.1% of the field (18 decks out of 31) and among the top 8 decks 75% of them were Boros Energy.
Clearly the situation is not healthy for the format and some changes are much needed. Guide of Souls, Ocelot Pride, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger and Amped Raptor are all cards coming from Modern Horizons 3 and they are defining the archetype of Boros Energy.
They are all really strong but in very different ways and I believe this should be a relevant factor when it comes to nerfs. A strong card doesn't necessarily need to be nerfed but a “too strong” card might need a little rebalance.
What are the possible changes to these cards?
I think the aforementioned cards have really different “problems” that need to be addressed in a specific way.
Ocelot Pride is, in my opinion, the hardest one to nerf: its body is nothing special and its abilities (First Strike and Lifelink) are really good considering its mana cost but still okay in terms of power level. The strength of the card comes from its ability to create, if undisputed, many tokens quickly. I don't think there is a easy way to rebalance the card without making it unplayable and in this I believe the context is much more relevant than the power of the card itself. I believe that with a weaker archetype around it the card could be considered really strong but not unbalanced. If I were to imagine a nerf for this card it would probably be to remove first strike from it so that it would die much easier from combat damage.
Guide of Souls is, in my opinion, the easiest one to rebalance among these 4 cards. Once again the body is okay but the effect might be too strong. I think changing the text into: “Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, you gain 1 life and get 1 energy. This ability triggers only once each turn” could be enough. Other two options could be to reduce its body as well, making it a 1/1 or reducing the numbers of counters put on target attacking creature: either going from 2 to 1 or removing the flying counter. I don't think the 3 nerfs should be done together and personally I would go with the first one only but wouldn't be surprised to see one of the other 2 as well.
When it comes to Amped Raptor I'm not sure about the need for a nerf but I've seen many people saying the card is too strong. Personally I think, at least at the beginning, the card should remain untouched. The card requires a specific deck building to make it work in a consistent way and this is something that should not be undervalued. I think the easiest nerf could be to remove first strike but the card would still be good within the energy archetype. If we really want to touch the energy effect of the card then I think there is only one solution: reducing the number of energy obtained when it enters the battlefield from 2 to 1. Another possibility would be to put back into the deck the land cards exiled with the effect. Overall I think the card could possibly be left untouched for the moment as the specific deckbuilding aspect is relevant when evaluating this card.
In my opinion the real problem of the format is Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger and I would just ban it. The card is just too strong to the point where I feel like a huge nerf would be needed. Big nerfs might produce unplayable cards as we have seen with Orcish Bowmasters. Removing the token from Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger would probably require the deck to use more cats and the card would probably become too weak at that point. Touching the bodies (its own and the one of the) would be not much relevant probably. Touching the planeswalker side of Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger could work and I think this is the path to follow if we want to nerf card. The planeswalker side comes into the battlefield with 3 counters that is probably a little too much considering that it can also protect itself with its +0. Lowering the number of loyalty counters from 3 to 2 could be a good idea but still not enough. How about making the +0 ability a -1 ability then? In this case we have access to the ability only 2 times before losing the planeswalker. Another option could be to remove the cat type from the token generated by Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger while also lowering the number of loyalty counters from 3 to 2. At this point we would still have 2 bodies for 2 mana but flipping Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger would require another setup and not only Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger itself. On top of that killing the flipped side would be a little easier.
One thing I wouldn't do to the card is making it more expensive, from 2 to 3 mana, while also adding one of the nerfs mentioned earlier. Paying 1 mana more for a creature card in an aggro deck is a big deal
Why not Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury?
Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury is a really strong card that can also be played in Boros Energy by giving up on Lurrus. Personally I think that this is a needed card in Historic as it can be used in many different archetypes. There is a place in all kinds of decks for this card. I think it could be a problem in the future but right now it might be ideal to give it some more time to see how the meta evolves after the changes to other (more problematic cards) take place.
Conclusion
These are only my ideas on how to nerf Boros Energy and I'm sure there are better ways to deal with the current situation. What's sure is that something needs to change and it will hopefully happen on August 6th. So far I don't think there are other problematic cards for the health of the format and I can't wait to see how WOTC will handle the situation.
