While it is not uncommon for powerful Magic: The Gathering Commanders to be banned, Neheb, the Eternal managed to narrowly escape a potential nerf from the Bloomburrow set.
With the continuous increase in the pace of game releases, Magic: The Gathering is now busier than ever before. Fans are constantly exploring new sets, building decks, and eagerly anticipating spoilers. As a result, new cards are constantly filtering into the game.
With the continuous evolution of MTG cards, there is a growing need for larger space to maintain their readability and coherence. However, this is becoming a challenge due to the game’s power creep, evident in sets like Modern Horizons 3, where even simple and inexpensive cards that were once plain are now equipped with numerous impactful abilities.
As individual cards have become more complex, the game has also seen numerous additions, including new card types and updated rules.
Wizards of the Coast appears to be making efforts to reduce unnecessary space in its card designs and language, in order to make room for additional rules text. This alteration has resulted in some unforeseen effects.
Bloomburrow has noticed that Wizards is altering the wording of some Magic cards, specifically changing “enters the battlefield”(commonly abbreviated as ETB) to simply “enters”.
Although this is just a minor adjustment in wording, there have been negative effects on a few of Magic’s Creatures and other cards due to another alteration in phrasing.
Starting with Bloomburrow, the postcombat main phase will now be referred to as the second main phase. While this change may result in smoother wording, it has significantly impacted the effectiveness of a particular combo that relies on activating additional combat steps.
As word of this wording change spread among MTG fans, it quickly became apparent that certain cards, particularly the highly favored mono-red Commander Neheb, the Eternal, would be significantly impacted by the addition of extra postcombat main phases.
The MTG community has been requesting a solution to restore Neheb, the Eternal to its previous functionality, and the MTG rules team promptly addressed this concern.
At first, the status of Neheb, the Eternal’s changes was uncertain, but it didn’t take long for a definitive decision to be made. In a tweet, Matt Tabak, Wizards’ Principal Magic Editor, informed fans that Neheb is among the 11 cards that will retain the text Postcombat Main Phase, ensuring that its most effective combos remain intact.
Neheb was significantly affected by these changes because many of red mana’s powerful cards enable players to take multiple combat steps in a single turn, such as Anzrag, the Quake-Mole from Murders at Karlov Manor. This card serves as a recent example.
Neheb, the Eternal pairs seamlessly with extra combat cards, making it a valuable addition to any red deck’s 99.
During the start of your postcombat main phase, Neheb grants you one red mana for every life opponents have lost this turn. This enables Neheb to continuously cast and activate additional combat steps, accumulating value and securing victory before opponents have a chance to take action again.
Despite the change to ‘Second Main Phase’, Neheb’s ability is now limited to only activating once per turn. This greatly hinders the deck’s strongest strategies and eliminates its potential to overpower opponents.
Fortunately, after fans expressed their disappointment, Wizards promptly addressed the unexpected nerf and allowed players using mono-red decks to retain one of their top choices for Commander.
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