Is Ward Wondrous or Worrisome?

Hello and welcome back. In today’s article I want to talk about a keyword ability that has made it into the discourse over the last couple of weeks, and that’s Ward. I’ll say up front that I never liked Ward because of the slippery slope that can occur once the cost of the ability increases. I feel it is too exponential when mana is used.

My opinion isn’t why I wrote this article. I want to discuss ward and why in the end I think if used in limited amounts and in limited or creative ways it can be a valuable area of design space as Magic continues forward.

WARD COST

Ward itself is an ability that protects the object that has it, or the player who does. Its standard text says that if you would be targeted by a spell or ability an opponent controls, that said thing is countered unless they pay the cost associated with the ward protecting the object or player. An important note here is that things that cannot be countered get around Ward.

Like Shroud and Hexproof (by itself or from something), it makes interacting with your stuff harder but with the ‘upside’ of having your opponent use extra resources to interact instead of not being able to at all.

One of the earliest examples of Ward was actually on Frost Titan, probably the most forgotten of the Titan cycle. Back when the cycle was first released, Frost Titan made a small splash in the metagames at the time in standard/ Unfortunately, being as slow as it is and having less impact on the board as the other Titans, it was cast to the wayside fairly quickly.

We’ve come full circle however. Now we have Ward on many, many, (too many in my opinion) cards. We even have ‘ward lords’, or cards like Flowering of the White Tree or Bronze Guardian, though they only hit a certain subset of cards. For the most part, Ward 1 or 2, or having to sacrifice something or pay some life isn’t too bad.

WARDING AGAINST WARD

Ward however can easily feel a bit too heavy of a lift to bother playing against. What helped spawn this article into existence is the recent discourse around Voja, Jaws of the Conclave. While it is accurately argued that Ward isn’t the only perceived problem by many with this card, it did get me thinking.

If we take the card in its entirety as a design, it works very well at what it wants to do. Be aggressive, and take the aggression from one turn to the next, gaining more as it goes and snowballing its advantages until victory is achieved. The speed at which this is done depends on the deck designed around Voja, but for the purposes of argument let’s assume Voja can attack turn 4 thanks to some mana from elves on the field. With two elves in play by then, a 7/7 trampling, vigilant card advantage engine is swinging at your face.

However, this card would still fall to the usual tactics to defeat it without Ward 3. Even Ward 2 or 1 might not do enough to protect it, especially against specific removal like Path to Exile or Pongify. Ward 3 does such a good job of protecting the wolf that many have said it’s too much on a card that already does a lot.

This can also be seen on some other cards, like Tivit, Seller of Secrets with Ward 3 and Miirym, Sentinel Wurm, which has a lesser Ward cost of 2. Any of these legends provide a great deal of value in a deck built around them to maximize what they do. Voja isn’t any different, and it can be argued that without Ward of any kind, these cards wouldn’t see as much play as they do. Dropping five and six drop commanders only to have them removed for a single mana or two doesn’t feel great, especially when it is the central engine of the deck.

Having a Ward cost “too high” however can also be a detriment to an individual game or games until players adapt. Unfortunately, the right answer is often player removal, or concentrated removal on those specific commanders when they appear because that is what’s readily available. One of the best things about Commander as a format is the ability to self regulate, but it often comes with growing pains.

FOR WARD

Ward will continue to see printing since it is an evergreen mechanic. Done in a balanced way, it can be a great ability to put on the right cards. However, done in an unbalanced way or too often leads to a forced meta shift, pressure to not use certain cards, or the creation of direct answers. Unlike most other evergreen abilities, this one comes with extra weight in design that others might not.

Whatever you think of Voja and other cards, I love the design space Ward can cover. As we’ve seen with Sauron, the Dark Lord or Amalia Benavides Aguirre, Ward doesn’t and isn’t only mana to spend to break through a protection, but can be flavorful includes. Place, artifacts, or characters that might have reason to have such protections in lore. While the game demands mechanics to function, Ward offers this flexibility to hit both flavor and mechanical necessity.

Until next time, be uncounterable!