Ashes Organized Play Update
August 2024
Hello, Ashes players!
GenCon is right around the corner, and Plaid Hat has been busy preparing for the week in Indianapolis. I know many of you are excited to attend the Ashes tournament we will be holding there, and I look forward to seeing you there. I wanted to push out an OP update before the tournament for a few reasons which we will discuss, but first the change itself.
We are implementing a full ban on Molten Gold. This is the first card ban to be introduced to Ashes, and as a result I wanted to start with a single card to see the impact it has. “Burn” cards that deal direct damage to Phoenixborn have been around since the very beginning of the game, and have always maintained high prevalence in many deckbuilds. Most of the burn spells used today come from the Master Set, meaning they’ve had a very long time in the spotlight, and have been core to Ashes gameplay for many years. The current metagame landscape has had burn consistently performing above many other deck archetypes, and can lead to games ending too quickly or unsatisfyingly. Molten Gold stands out among the rest of the burn suite by being the highest amount of damage per card, making it the most ‘dense’ source of burn in the game. Molten Gold also is the hardest burn spell to interact with as an opponent, since it directly places wound tokens instead of dealing damage, cutting out several defensive effects from being able to stop it. It also is an action spell, which means it can be played with proactivity and ease, whereas other burn spells like Final Cry and Sympathy Pain are power-cost reactions, relying on setting up the right dice at the right time to be playable, making those spells more interactable.
Previously, I have used the Chained List to help cultivate healthier metagames in competitive Ashes. Burn poses a different issue, as it is not a negative play experience determined in the First Five. Rather than starting the game off in oppressive ways, burn closes games out too effectively. I am considering this ban as an experiment first and foremost, and will be excited to see how players adapt to this change for GenCon and through online play. There are a handful of consequences that come with banning a card, and it is difficult to balance those. My goal with this chance is for players to have more fun playing Ashes, have more diversity in what decks they want to build and what decks they face, and for each game to come to a more satisfactory conclusion, win or lose. It is not my goal for burn to be exiled from the meta, simply just to lower the access and density to premium burn across the game. Burn still plays an important role in Ashes, tightly balanced between winning the game through the battlefield or through fatigue. Burn is healthiest as a supplement to these other strategies to help close games and to have a chance to win games when you fall behind on the battlefield, not so much as an all in race.
Thanks for reading, and I hope this change brings you more enjoyment in the competitive environment! See you at GenCon!
