We finally played our first game, and the experience was amazing! And, even though we're clearly great designers, there were a few cards that were less—or more—than we were hoping they'd be.

So, here's the cards we're adding to our Watchlist. After a few more games, we'll probably replace these cards with others that align better with what we envision for the environment.

Golos is just built different

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim trivializes the draft portion of the experience to a point where it undoes a lot of the fun of building a deck. It's always the correct choice to pick it and build the same deck you were building but using it as the commander, instead. We were already aware that this might be the case, but decided to try it out before making any assumptions, because science.

At the very least, it lets you pick Talismans and Moxes outside your colors, which wasn't great.

The biggest issue is the fact that you can pick Golos very late, after having built something you're actually happy with and, even then, it remains the correct decision.

Gunk is no funk

We originally thought that Gunk Slug's ability would be a novel way to interact with your opponents without affecting the board, but the card mostly sits on players hands without being played and, quite frankly, it's for the better. The effect doesn't give any feedback when a player draws one a Gunk, so there's no positive experience for the player that uses the card. Even more so, the card doesn't generate a good experience for anyone on the table when its played.

It's impact is low, the effect has no immediate feedback, and it only leads to bad experiences.

Zero potential

For a Conspiracy, Unexpected Potential feels really low impact. You're making a card easier to cast, yes, but you were already able to play that card on your deck, so it doesn't feel like a big deal. We want Conspiracies to have effects that are small, yet impactful, and this card doesn't align with that.

Maybe extinction was the right choice

Zilortha, Strength Incarnate is a good enough card, to be honest. It's part of the power-matters synergy package that Gruul has going on and it does its job as a beater decently, too. The main issue with this dinosaur is that, while its a goodish card, it doesn't really help its strategy that much.

There aren't enough creatures with a large enough disparity between power and toughness in favor of power to justify picking this card over any other option. While a toughness-matters commander could see play and be built in a way that fulfils its proposed fantasy in a much more satisfying way, the amount of higher-power-than-toughness creatures doesn't reach the amount that'd be necessary to make the commander satisfying to play.

What makes this an issue, however, is the fact that you can't figure this out while drafting. It's a birds-eye-view kind of problem. Since the creature is good even without support, it doesn't really underperform, it just doesn't really scratch the itch it's supposed to.