X Marks the Spot (Whispers from the Maze) [Reveal]

I’m thrilled to be able to reveal X Marks the Spot, an exciting Lyra spell from the upcoming set, Whispers from the Maze.

TL;DR:

• I expect this to be a mid-to-high pick in draft/sealed, especially for Fen. About as strong as character removal gets at common.
• Pros: pseudo-discard; synergy with dice-roll payoffs; attacks opponent’s resources; the common is sufficient
• Cons: 3-cost removal; sometimes lets a threat be replayed; fights for slots with Cloth Cocoon (C); rare’s rebate is somewhat late and unreliable

Design

A die roll determining how far into the deck a card goes is a really fun piece of design. I love this implementation of randomness: what matters most is just that it goes somewhere, but then there’s a spectrum of how successful you are.

If the common doesn’t satiate the gambling addict in you, the rare ups the stakes with a hard threshold for a mana rebate. It tests your contingency planning in a thrilling way: for each possible die roll, what do you target, considering where it’ll go in the deck and whether you’ll ready the mana orb?

The dual meaning of the placeholder variable X is very cute.

Discussion

I’d argue that this effect is close to “discard target character” for 3 mana. The only time it’s meaningfully worse is if you need to target a powerful rare or unique with it and you low-roll.

Unlike send-to-reserve or return-to-hand removal, this offers the opportunity to trade resources 1-for-1 since the targeted character needs to be redrawn to be replayed. The catch is that you’ll need to target a non-fleeting character without a strong on-play effect to get maximum value.

If you roll low and send a weak or average character to the top of your opponent’s deck, it can be better than a discard effect: you’re forcing them to redraw a middling card when they’d prefer to have something more impactful.

Even if you target a strong character that your opponent would gladly replay, it’s convenient that the time when you most want to fire off removal spells is in the mid-to-late-game. If you roll a 6, 5, 4, or maybe 3, the character won’t be replayable on the following day. It’s not unthinkable that the game ends before your opponent redraws it. I say maybe 3 because if your opponent draws a single card, it can accelerate the clock by one day.

There are even some strong characters where delaying them is enough of a blow. If you hit an anchored Aloe Vera with this on D2, it’ll be less impactful if redrawn on D4 or D5.

Edit (credit to SpecialBuilder32): I initially missed that this is like All In! in that you can select the target after you see the result. If you low-roll, you can abort out of letting your opponent replay their powerful unique and send a weaker character on top instead. This does, however, require being in a board state where removing the less powerful character is still acceptable, which I think will be uncommon.

Comparison

The easiest point of comparison is Paint Prison (C), a card which sees very little competitive play for several reasons (note: I still believe it’s a reasonable 38th/39th card for Fen):

• 3 mana post-discount is still a fairly high cost.
• It puts the card directly on top of the deck.
• It costs a card from reserve.

Is X Marks the Spot (C) enough better that it will see play?

• It has the same effective mana cost. If this card doesn’t see constructed play, it’ll probably be because 3 mana is just a little too expensive for character removal.
• The chance to bury the card one or two full days deeper can be the difference between it being played again or not.
• Not costing a card from reserve is a big advantage. Even Fen isn’t always okay with burning resources, but cannibalizing your reserve is a real cost for Nevenka and Auraq.
• It can’t target a permanent. There’s value in having a catch-all answer, but you’re truthfully not missing out on too much here. There are many permanents you won’t want to put on top of the deck anyway, such as Haven, Bravos Bastion (R) or a Brassbug Hive (R) for Sierra.

The rare

Edit (credit to SpecialBuilder32): Being able to select the target after seeing the result of the die roll is particularly relevant for the rare, where you can choose the best target that still gives you the mana rebate. In practice, however, I imagine you’ll often be locked into a target before the die roll.

The most commonly played characters cost between 1 and 3 mana, meaning the rare has a fairly high chance of readying a mana orb. Without any extra help, this has a 2/3 chance of getting the rebate if you plan to target a Kadigiran Mage-Dancer and a 1/2 chance if you plan to target an Aloe Vera. 2-mana “discard target character” is something I can get behind.

Unfortunately, 3-mana then maybe ready a mana orb is different in some important ways.

First, it forces you to play your removal spell earlier in the afternoon if you want to take advantage of the mana rebate. An opponent will usually lead with their weaker characters, so you might not be able to find as strong of a target.

Second, the unreliability of the die roll forces you to plan for both eventualities. Picture playing this with 1 mana up hoping to ready a mana orb and follow up with your Magpeng Hoarder (R): there’s a pretty big difference if you low-roll and are forced to either remove a suboptimal target to get the discount or settle for playing your Martengale (C) instead.

The result is that I’m predicting the rare upgrade will be closer to a niche benefit than a reliable discount unless you’re putting it in a dedicated dice-rolling deck with multiple sources of dice-manipulation.

Synergies

Dice-rolling payoffs

• Kadigiran Mage-Dancer (F)

It’s convenient to have an interaction spell that also triggers your dice-rolling payoffs.

Dice-rolling support

• Martengale (R)
• The Ouroboros, Lyra Bastion (R)

More worthwhile for the rare. Reliably getting the mana discount seems more important than tucking the card a bit deeper.

Limited

I expect X Marks the Spot to be a strong pick in draft and sealed even without seeing the full set composition. Perhaps even more so than usual due to the set’s focus on boosts (bigger targets) and abilities in reserve (target never goes there).

Every deck wants some amount of character removal to trade up against a bomb in the late-game, but this is one of the few removal spells we’ve seen that also trades evenly against a non-fleeting 3-mana character. You don’t want to overload on removal, but I anticipate that I’d always be excited to pick up the first one or two copies.

X Marks the Spot (C) compares favorably to most unconditional character removal we’ve seen in limited, especially at common, provided that you don’t need the flexibility of discarding a permanent (which you often don’t):

• Lost in the Woods (C): no forest restriction; doesn’t send to reserve
• Banishing Gate (C): 1 mana cheaper
• Cloth Cocoon (C): doesn’t require a status condition
• Break the Ice (C): doesn’t send to reserve; no difficult cost-reduction condition
• Boom! (C): doesn’t require a sacrifice
• Mana Eruption (C): doesn’t cost a mana orb
• Mana Reaping (C): doesn’t ramp your opponent
• Freeze (C): 1 mana cheaper
• Geyser (C): 1 mana cheaper; doesn’t return to hand (but doesn’t ramp)
• Paint Prison (C): discussed above

Cost-based removal spells like Off You Go!, Intimidation, and Teamwork Training (C) for Sigismar will be more efficient on small characters. But once you start looking for outs to large characters as well, you’re competing with premium options like Freeze (R) and Mana Eruption (R).

Constructed

Fen & Crowbar

If you’re using X Marks the Spot to trade 1-for-1, Fen’s daily resupply will put her ahead on resources.

I’d be curious to test the common as a 1-of in current lists that focus on bouncing spells. The Fen deck I’m running currently has no permanent answer to e.g. Hydracaena (R), other than putting it to sleep and closing out the game before it can take over. Especially now that Small Step, Giant Leap (F) has been weakened, it could be worth having a longer-term solution for late-game threats.

This is also a solid reason to explore a different build featuring fleeting removal over recurrable removal like Off You Go (F). Resupplying into fleeting spells like this is effective card advantage, and shifting removal from rare to common is nice.

The issue remains that 3 mana isn’t cheap, and it fights for slots with Cloth Cocoon (C), which is still necessary as a source of permanent removal.

Nevenka & Blotch

I could see the common being worthwhile as more cards are released that trigger off of dice rolls.

The rare is appealing if dice-manipulation has it costing 2, but I think you’ll be able to get more value spending your rare slots elsewhere.

Muna

I’d be surprised if the OOF rare sees much competitive play purely because it’s fighting for a rare slot when the faction already has acceptable removal options at common.

Art

It’s very cool to see Nevenka’s handiwork in action.

I love the way the berry-colored X of the common gives way to the luminescent neon yellow of the rare. The graffiti outlines around Nevenka and Blotch and the shimmering vapors are lovely touches that will undoubtedly look gorgeous when foiled.

The art was done by HuoMiao Studio, who also brought us personal favorites Flutter of Moths, Moth Lantern, and Small Step, Giant Leap, along with beloved cuties Moonlight Jellyfish and Aloe Vera.