Great read for new players! Puts things into perspective a crash course of sorts.

Thanks butete. I was hoping it might be useful to new players, and at least of some interest for thinking about how the game is structured for those of us who have been playing since the beginning. It can be easy to forget what the new player experience is like, or to lose sight of what they have access to (especially since the D cards are not sortable at the moment). I wanted to keep it in mind, and think about how the game's creators are, purposefully or through happenstance, shaping the new player experience of Duels.

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it. ^_^

Amonkhet D Card Update

(If Wizards failed to show us all of the D cards released on their Facebook spoiler, I will rewrite this post later to reflect any additional changes.)

It's that time again: time for me to delve deep into the esoterica of the D cards, and to second-guess / overthink the decisions made regarding them by Wizards of the Coast / Stainless. Things were looking a bit less bleak at the Aether Revolt update; will we continue to reverse negative trends, or slide back into a poor update? In either case, I shall continue to analyze this narrow aspect of the game and hope that it sheds some insight on something, for someone. If you think I'm wrong in my analysis then by all means, explain why. Without further ado, let's get into it.


The Amonkhet D Cards: Gust Walker, Rhet-Crop Spearmaster, Trial of Solidarity, Horror of the Broken Lands, Ruthless Sniper, Stir the Sands, Desert Cerodon, Flameblade Adept, Nef-Crop Entangler, Pursue Glory, Trueheart Twins.


WHAT THEY (WotC/Stainless) DID DO:

* Supported 2 (or one and a half) new deck archetypes, both of which are unique to their expansion (an exert deck could exist now for sure, and maybe the skeletal beginnings of a cycling/looting deck); whether there are actually two new archetypes in the deck wizard or not remains to be seen.
* Added simple incarnations of two new mechanics: exert and cycling. They also gave us a not-as-simple incarnation of -1/-1 counters with Ruthless Sniper.
* Added a generous amount of cards for a single expansion: we have 11 new D cards this update.
* Added cards that could reach staple status depending on the metagame; I'm keeping an eye on Trial of Solidarity, Ruthless Sniper, Flameblade Adept and Trueheart Twins.
* Filled in at least one spot all the way up the mana curve from 1 through 6 converted mana cost, and the cards are pretty evenly distributed this time around!


WHAT THEY DIDN'T DO:

* Add any rares or mythic rares (Trial of Solidarity, Ruthless Sniper, Stir the Sands, Flameblade Adept, and Trueheart Twins are uncommon); this pattern continues to hold.
* No new bannings/rotations, leaving the existing card pool intact.
* Keep the numbers even across colors (we have 3 white cards, 3 black cards, and 5 red cards; and 6 commons, 5 uncommons)
* Provide any cards for this D card update with the embalm, or split-card mechanics.
* Provide a cartouche to pair up with Trial of Solidarity.


Unless any hidden D cards show up later, 11 new cards have been added to our D cards with Amonkhet (39 cards total counting duplicates), a slightly generous amount which overshoots the 10 I was expecting. Aether Revolt spoiled me with 12 cards added for a small set release, but I won't snub these 11. Two new archetype decks are enabled (I think), although it's a bit amusing to a veteran like myself to call cycling "new." What is new to Duels may as well be considered new in this discussion though, paper magic aside.

First off, the newbie exert deck looks like it has some teeth. There is a dream to be lived with Trueheart Twins, but even more realistically, I would like to draw everyone's attention to the D card granting vigilance... well, no, I don't mean Trial of Solidarity even though it looks useful. For this, we will journey all the way back to Battle for Zendikar for the innocuous Makindi Patrol. Oh, right, that guy. You don't have to dip into allies any deeper than you feel necessary, a playset of these might be enough on their own as you add board presence and keep your exert creatures running into the red zone. With a touch of vigilance the early drop critters look good, especially Gust Walker and Rhet-Crop Spearmaster. Another reason I like Makindi Patrol here is that getting your warm body count high will be nice for Trueheart Twins, bolstering them up to 3/3, 4/3 or beyond. Warm bodies are also good if you plan on using Trial of Solidarity, and you probably should have at least one or two.

The possible cycling deck I am more skeptical of. It appears to be built on the backs of a pair of 1-drops (Ruthless Sniper and Flameblade Adept), and we have 4 total cards that can cycle. However, just recently Aether Revolt gave us Reckless Racer for more discard outlet, and that might be enough to make this deck functional. You could even slip in a copy or two of Rise from the Grave, although plain old Gravedigger may be even better to let you get cycling triggers again. I do see a possible deck here, I'm just curious how it plays.

I continue to be pleased by the apparent "extra" cards we are receiving, we've made some progress on climbing out of the hole Eldritch Moon gave us (it only had 5 cards). Between Amonkhet and Aether Revolt I may start to get spoiled. I hope that this is not just a fluke, but rather an ongoing trend of padding a bit more than 10 cards into the updates. If a couple extra cards keep making their way into the D card updates, we could have room to breathe and include some nice basic effects that are applicable across a multitude of deck archetypes. Cycling cards have a nice open-ended quality where they can be useful for graveyard strategies, reanimation, delirium, etc. in addition to smoothing out your mana curve and land draws, so I'm pretty happy with the options for this update. Aggro decks also have some solid options going on here; I'll be keeping an eye on Flameblade Adept and whether it can play nicely with madness and Innistrad vampires.

The ongoing lack of rotation suggests that WotC feels we have a sufficiently diverse metagame... and maybe we do, as long as Amonkhet doesn't break the format or whatnot. In general I think Wizards likes to keep the banhammer for special occasions and would prefer to not remove cards from a format. With such a large card pool it becomes increasingly difficult to shake up the format, so if things ever stagnate enough we might see more rotations/bannings then. For now, I continue to predict they will let it ride.

As for new players, this update has the potential to be the most aggro-heavy update I've ever seen. If the 1-drops do manage to take off with the cycling deck, your opponent may not be able to keep blockers around due to -1/-1 counters from Ruthless Sniper, while Flameblade Adept beats the snot out of them. Unlike some aggro decks, you do have a late game by casting/reanimating your cycling fatties. Even if that deck turns out to be awkward and unfortunate, the exert deck has plenty of mean on-curve options available and ways to get vigilance with reasonable upside. Even slower decks got some toys here though, not just with the large cycling creatures but also with Stir the Sands. Whether you cycle it for 4 or hard-cast it for 6, Stir the Sands is a nice tool to have in the D cards going forward.

Final Thoughts: Wizards of the Coast gets a grade of B+ for this D card update. Cycling gives us some much-needed flexibility as well as new utility, and some of the exert creatures look like they might be able to pull their weight. There appears to be some reverse-compatibility with old deck archetypes like delirium and reanimator. Only 3 of the 11 cards were not creatures this time, so this is not helping to put the brakes on the lopsided creature/spell ratio of the D cards; in order to truly reverse it, we would need some updates that have 50% or more spells, but that seems highly unlikely as each new archetype deck so far has required creatures to make it function. I'm fairly pleased with this update, but I would have been overjoyed with more utility, more removal, and a higher ratio of noncreature spells.

Have to agree with you here rumfish, I know most of us here don't really look at the D cards but I'm pretty surprised by how good this selection is, compare it to **** like the stonework puma's of the past these really aren't too shabby, the starter red deck got some really nice buffs here especially!

Amonkhet D Card Ratings

I know that the metagame will not settle down for a while, but I will judge these new D cards based on my previous analysis (towards the lower half of page 2, starting here: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14251&start=20#p446272). Mostly I hope to judge them in the context of the D cards, but I may speculate on the constructed deckbuilding aspects as well. Ready? Alright, here goes 11 card reviews to add to the previous ones...

White

Gust Walker - 2.0
E - 3.0
P - 2.0

I dub thee Jump Bear. Anyway, this one can pack the sort of punch that Smuggler's Copter has when you need it, but it does less "average" damage per turn than a Welkin Tern if you keep exerting it. However, the ability to punch through a stalemate is nice. It's possible I am underrating this card right now, it has good versatility for an aggro deck and could be amazing with Always Watching.

Rhet-Crop Spearmaster - 2.0
E - 1.0
P - 2.0

Okay, not exactly a head-turner, but the same Always Watching commentary applies. If your opponent does not have a first striker you can really give them some headaches on blocking, especially if you are packing any tricks. I wouldn't say I'm impressed even a little bit, and there will be better options for a veteran player; but still, a new player could do useful things with this guy.

Trial of Solidarity - 2.0
E - 3.0
P - 2.0

I think it's weird that this was put into the D cards without one of the cartouches to go along with it, but whatever. It may be a sorcery-speed combat trick, but it's still one heck of a trick and it's potentially repeatable. The stats are solid, it has potential repeatable card advantage, and it could have synergy with things like Sigil of the Empty Throne.


Black

Horror of the Broken Lands - 1.0
E - 1.0
P - 3.0

At a glance, this guy is between terrible and mediocre if you don't plan on triggering him, but an acceptable way to fill your graveyard with a random creature. However, if you do have ways to trigger him, he can become enormous and smash faces (or smash chump blockers... you should come up with a plan to deal with those). The price on the cycling is right, so some part of me knows the potential is there to go in the right deck and play a synergy role; if you can make the battlefield part of the card work, that has potential too.

Ruthless Sniper - 2.0
E - 2.0
P - 3.0

Another entry into the "narrow removal" category for black's D cards, this one looks a little better than some previous contestants. Cheap enough to fit into a suicide / Sligh deck curve, but also with the potential to run in a slower aggro-control disruption build. Probably the best use will be to remove early game blockers / threats as mana allows, and I am curious how that will play out. I am intrigued, but conservative for now.

Stir the Sands - 2.0
E - 3.0
P - 2.0

I don't know that there's a specific deck for this card, but I'm optimistic on this one. Cycling it gives you a sort of Striped Bears with flash (surprise blocker), while hard-casting it helps stabilize the ground and/or push you towards an overwhelming alpha strike. The more veteran you are the less you probably need this card, but that doesn't mean it isn't good. New players can really jump-start into a zombie deck with the help of Stir the Sands.


Red

Desert Cerodon - 1.0
E - 1.0
P - 2.0

I dub thee Cycling Craw Wurm. So, this is a simple card with a nice basic effect. A veteran would only be interested if paying R to cycle a creature into the graveyard is appealing to their deck for some reason. A new player, on the other hand, might find this an acceptable reanimation target with Rise from the Grave or just enjoy drawing another card using Gravedigger. Not much more to say about this one.

Flameblade Adept - 3.0
E - 4.0
P - 2.0

Folks will probably think I am being too generous here, but I see devastating potential for efficiency and power. One thing I will need to have clarified is how this will work with the madness mechanics from Innistrad; if it's all hunky-dory then this could be quite the nice addition to a vampire deck. Also, if we get any effects that let us discard and draw our hand like Tolarian Winds then this card will blow up. Time will tell; the day of reckoning may not be upon us yet.

Nef-Crop Entangler - 1.0
E - 1.0
P - 1.0

The small white exert creatures are pretty good... and then there's this schmuck. I'm not saying he wouldn't be deadly with an Always Watching at his back; of course he would be. He wouldn't be flying though, and he wouldn't be protected with first strike. Ehhhh... I'm just not feeling the love on this one.

Pursue Glory - 1.0
E - 1.0
P - 1.0

Maybe I'm underestimating this one, but I feel like this is a filler card. It is an instant at least, and it does cycle so there's that. Maybe a singleton copy in your cycling deck could make for an occasional game-winning surprise? I'll feel pretty dumb later if this card ends up being a major win condition of a powerful cycling deck.

Trueheart Twins - 3.0
E - 1.0
P - 3.0

A swingy card, and hard for me to judge. It triggers whenever you exert a creature, so I do entertain visions of 3+ triggers going off on the same attack step. 5 mana is pushing into midrange territory, and I don't know if a low-to-the-ground exert aggro deck wants this or not. If it doesn't... is there a beefy midrange exert deck that does? I'm not sure, but the absurd possibilities must be tested before I can toss this card aside.



Final Thoughts on the Amonkhet D Cards: Cycling is a welcome addition that adds a touch of utility to this update. If the Always Watching exert deck can be built, some of these cards might possibly find a home within. New players have an influx of aggro possibilities, but older and slower decks got a few updates too. There are things to watch, in particular I'm curious about Flameblade Adept and whether it makes the cut into the deep end of play. I'm pretty happy with this batch, it has potential.

Statistical Analysis of the D Cards (Amonkhet Update)

This post is for those of you who enjoy taking a hard look under the hood and crunching numbers; it won't be for everyone. My intention here is to discover any discrepancies, irregularities, and imbalances that exist within the D cards as they currently exist. My hypothesis is this: since we have been receiving irregular updates that do not affect the colors equally, the colors will not be at even distributions and some will have more of a lion's share of cards than others. This does not present judgments on the quality of those cards, just the numbers. I'm going to list some easily quantifiable metrics (# of creatures, creatures at each CMC, etc.) for each color in the D cards. Take a deep breath, grab a drink... and let's dive in.


Section One: Color by Number

White: 24 total
Creatures: 18
* Creature CMC 1: 3
* CMC 2: 5
* CMC 3: 5
* CMC 4: 3
* CMC 5: 1
* CMC 6: 0
* CMC 7: 1
Enchantments: 4
Instants: 1
Sorceries: 1

Blue: 23 total
Artifacts: 1 (Esperzoa, you weirdo. Also counted in creatures.)
Creatures: 18
* Creature CMC 1: 1
* CMC 2: 5
* CMC 3: 5
* CMC 4: 4
* CMC 5: 2
* CMC 6: 1
Enchantments: 1
Instants: 4
Sorceries: 0

Black: 27 total
Creatures: 21
* Creature CMC 1: 2
* CMC 2: 5
* CMC 3: 4
* CMC 4: 7
* CMC 5: 2
* CMC 6: 1
Enchantments: 1
Instants: 1
Sorceries: 4

Red: 25 total
Creatures: 17
* Creature CMC 1: 3
* CMC 2: 3
* CMC 3: 4
* CMC 4: 3
* CMC 5: 3
* CMC 6: 1
Enchantments: 3
Instants: 2
Sorceries: 3

Green: 25 total
Creatures: 18
* Creature CMC 1: 1
* CMC 2: 5
* CMC 3: 4
* CMC 4: 2
* CMC 5: 4
* CMC 6: 1
* CMC 7: 1
Enchantments: 2
Instants: 4
Sorceries: 1

Multicolor: 3 total
Creatures: 3
* Creature CMC 1-2: 0
* CMC 3: 3

Artifacts/Colorless/Lands: 38 total
Artifacts: 9 (10 if you count Esperzoa, but I am counting it here as a blue card for the purposes of section distribution; 4 of the artifacts are also counted with creatures)
Creatures: 8
* CMC 1: 0
* CMC 2: 1
* CMC 3: 2
* CMC 4: 1
* CMC 5-6: 0
* CMC 7: 2
* CMC 8: 1
* CMC 9: 1
Lands: 26 (6 basic lands, and the two 10-card dual-land cycles; notably, Wastes is the only one that produces dedicated colorless mana)

Thoughts from Section One: Amonkhet has done great things for the numbers here, especially for Red. Red has caught up with the other colors, the mana curve has smoothed out, and in general it is looking a lot healthier with these 5 new cards. White could still use a touch more fat in its curve, like an angel that costs 5 or 6 mana (Voice of the Provinces or something similar, or even the ubiquitous Serra Angel at uncommon), but it isn't hurting on total cards anymore. Black has taken the crown back from Green for now, but it looks more even when you factor in multicolor and colorless cards that include green mana like It of the Horrid Swarm. More importantly, even though Black is still sitting at the top, the mana curve got some much-needed additions to start balancing against the CMC 4 creature bloat. Artifacts/colorless could still use some extra additions to smooth out the curve and bring them a little closer to where the other colors are; the D cards have minimal support to run an artifact deck outside of vehicles. In all of the colors, I'd like to see more noncreature spells: Mark Rosewater has said before that when designing commons for a set, you want about half of them to be creatures, and half to be noncreature spells. The ratios here are way, way off from that, and Amonkhet was not particularly helpful with 3 of its 11 cards being noncreature spells. I predict this trend is going to continue, since most decks - especially new player decks - revolve around creatures, and most sets have new creature mechanics to trot out.


Section Two: Removal by Number

Removal will be divided into creature removal, and utility removal (meaning noncreature card types). The two can overlap on cards such as Countermand and Into the Maw of Hell. We have only one honorable mention to make with Amonkhet (Ruthless Sniper), but I will repost it for reference's sake.


White Removal: 4 total
Creature Removal: 3
Utility Removal: 2 (Suppression Bonds counts twice)

Honorable Mention: Dauntless River Marshal acts as soft creature removal, if you have the mana to spare.


Blue Removal: 2 total
Creature Removal: 2
Utility Removal: 1 (Countermand counts twice)

Honorable Mention: Tempo cards include Grip of the Roil, Frost Lynx, Murk Strider and Kapsho Kitefins. If you use enough of these they can start to feel like removal, but for the purpose of this post I will not be counting them as proper removal.


Black Removal: 2 total
Creature Removal: 2
Utility Removal: 0

Honorable Mention: The black D cards have more removal... for dedicated decks: Lys Alana Scarblade, Kindly Stranger, Ruthless Sniper and Nightfire Giant all fit this description. Nightfire Giant could also kinda kill planeswalkers, and Mind Raker does discard which theoretically could act as removal as well... but I'm not counting any of these corner cases for this purpose.


Red Removal: 6 total
Creature Removal: 6 (Ember Hauler, Inferno Fist and Bloodpyre Elemental are counted for this purpose, as they are all generic costs that are relatively easy to use and don't require building around)
Utility Removal: 1 (Into the Maw of Hell is counted twice here)

Honorable Mention: Goblin Arsonist, Pyromancer's Assault and Barrage Ogre could all kill things in weird ways... but none of them are counted towards the removal total.


Green Removal: 1 total
Creature Removal: 0
Utility Removal: 1 (Reclamation Sage)

Honorable Mention: Green has never been great at creature removal, but it has combat tricks in Primal Bellow, Wildsize and Chorus of Might that could all theoretically act like a kill spell or a finisher on a good day. Not all days are good though, so they don't count for this purpose.


Artifact/Colorless/Land Removal: Naught.

Honorable Mention: Drownyard Behemoth can be a surprise 5/7 blocker with hexproof, which is pretty good and will sometimes act as a kill spell. It would have a high mana cost and a lot of restrictions as a kill spell though ("Destroy an attacking creature without evasion with toughness 5 or less" for 9 mana, or 7U emerge), and with that many stipulations it falls into the same area as Kindly Stranger in that not many decks can use it to full effect. For that reason, it is not counted as a removal spell.


Thoughts from Section Two: At first blush, Red would appear to be the king of removal, and it is... for small creatures. There's a notable change in effort to deal 4 damage instead of 2 damage, and Into the Maw of Hell is the only "unconditional" destroy spell (every creature in our format that would die to the words "destroy target creature" also die to 13 damage, unless I am forgetting some very bizarre corner case... putting three Siegecraft on the same creature doesn't count, because that's dumb... oh fine, maybe a Nantuko Husk could be saved on a good day, if they really felt like it). Anyway, to be blunt, all of the colors need more removal (Red less so). White is doing okay, I might give it Misfortune's Gain. Blue needs Cancel badly, I might also give it Chant of the Skifsang for removal, and Chronostutter just for the art. Black is in a strange position: it has plenty of cards, yet its removal is questionable outside of a dedicated deck. Murder should have gone into the D cards, but I think we could still see something like Eyeblight's Ending on the elf theme, or something setting-specific in a future set like Chill to the Bone; I also want to see Mind Rot in the list as a staple effect of Black, and to be greedy (and kill planeswalkers), Corrupt. If we feel Red is doing poorly even with that stack of removal, just add Flame Slash and Jaws of Stone and be done with it. For Green, I'd give it Naturalize and maybe Leaf Arrow to fill things out; if I'm feeling greedy, Bramblecrush.


Conclusion: The colors are now much closer to being in balance, but there are some old problems like Black's fat stack of 4-drops. I predicted the problems would only get worse with time, but now it seems I must eat my words along with some Storm Crow. Perhaps someone at Wizards/Stainless does actually care about the D cards, and they have charted out a years-long course that maintains something approaching an average between the colors. The other possibility, I guess, is that by dumb luck they managed to put out a more balanced D card update with both Aether Revolt and now also Amonkhet. I don't think that is the case though: this update bucks some of the trends of older updates (more cards, more uncommons, better color balance, better mana curve balance, etc.), which leads me to think there was some amount of theory-crafting applied to it. The fact that it specifically shored up even more of the weaknesses I'd been observing makes me wonder if someone out there is reading my analysis and trying to put things right as best they can... most likely though, they have a tally board somewhere where they are independently tracking some of these same statistics and that influences their decision of what archetype decks to push through the next year. In other words, things appear to be getting better.

As a final thought, I believe that they have managed to keep archetype power in some sort of rough balance (more like a hierarchy) by focusing new cards largely upon narrow strategies that don't synergize well with other things. Allies, eldrazi processors, colorless-matters / colorless mana pumps, energy counters and artifacts-matter are all pretty narrow mechanics for deckbuilding in the D cards. There's a little more wiggle room with surge, delirium (delirium continues to snag new toys with most updates, now with cycling giving an assist to the graveyard), emerge and revolt, but they still don't want to be tossed casually into a deck. If the strategies don't play well with others, then those decks tend to remain at the power level they had when they first came out no matter how many cards get added. Vehicles are a noteworthy counterpoint here in terms of "ease of access" (not too hard to toss into a random creature deck), but obviously the vehicle support cards can be just as narrow as eldrazi processors. For the moment, I predict seeing an endless stream of creature-based "gimmick mechanic X" archetype decks and cards for the D cards, with the real shakeups happening during card rotations. The most modular and open mechanics like delirium will continue to reap profits from new sets more easily than the narrow mechanics like energy counters.

You accidentally put Aether Revolt instead of Amonkhet a couple of times.

Betrayed by copypasta

Yeah, I was tired when I put this together, so my proofreading wasn't top notch. I edited the entries. I like the posts to be consistent and uniform since it makes referencing them easier, so I change the sections and update the text to reflect new changes. For the old problems... I could find new ways to say the same thing, I suppose, but some of those problems haven't changed and my solutions for them are roughly the same. Instead of suggesting Voice of the Provinces for white, I was curious if they would add Winged Shepherd in this update to fill in a spot/finisher for white's mana curve. I think they missed an opportunity by not doing so. Still, leaving in a suggestion for Serra Angel or Voice of the Provinces is basically the same deal.

i'm just amazed someone read it!

Awww, I love you too Barney. ^_~

What a comprehensive list Rumfish! Impressive. As always, the page will be handy for new players.

Thanks butete. I also updated the post that contains the D card list, in the order as it appears in-game, in this post: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14251&p=530278#p530278