INTRODUCTION
The GU Balance Team introduced Sleep 2.0 in the PTR a couple of weeks back but decided against pushing through the changes to the live server. Understandably, there were a lot of adverse effects that Sleep 2.0 will bring to the game.
But worry no more because I come bearing a better solution to balancing BWD. Best of all, this unsolicited idea is FREE! (well, maybe a card donation to complete my deck build is also appreciated).
WHY SLEEP 2.0 DIDN'T WORK?
First, let's review the disadvantages of the proposed changes on Sleep 2.0 as per IMBryn's post on discord :
The balance update we delivered this month can be undone by a huge change like this one.
The nerf would damage BWD as an archetype a little, but the proposed change shoots almost 30 cards out of the meta – mostly belonging to Deception.
The change will impact some domains more than others. For example Magic has a ton of ways to deal damage and wake things up using spells and god powers, but Magic was already favored against BWD. It’s other domains that need help to face BWD, like Nature and Light, who have way less interactions with the new mechanic.
The Core card changes we implemented to test alongside sleep 2.0 can be used in a variety of ways, like doing direct face damage to proc frenzy for Nature/War.
Overall, we think the power level of those cards can be slightly above average.
Aggro decks already make the best use of the Sanctum, with these changes, this would become even more severe.
MY PROPOSED SOLUTION TO NERFING SLEEP MECHANICS
Knowing the above complications in introducing the proposed Sleep 2.0 changes, I came up with a simple yet effective answer to balancing sleep archetypes and that is:
Make anti-sleep a creature ability.
Yeah, that's basically the crux of my proposed solution.
So let's say for the purpose of this exercise we call this ability as "Vigilance". (This creature is immune to sleep effects.)
In Magic the Gathering, Vigilance is an ability on creatures that allows the creature to attack without tapping. I just like the word as well to describe a creature that is always "awake".
Okay, some would say we already have the "Ward" ability to block sleep -- why not just make more warded creatures? Ward also blocks spells, hence, giving more of this ability to new and existing creatures will weaken a lot of archetypes and undo a lot of the balance as well.
A new sleep immune ability to creatures is more flexible and easier to balance as the GU team will be able to put out new creature cards with this ability or give them to existing creatures.
It can be given out to specific domains more than others such as Nature and Light without giving more weapons to Magic. War has relics to enable it to attack face and maybe will just require a couple of cards or so to give it a chance to win against BWD without making it too overpowered.
WHY IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER ANTI-SLEEP TECH?
Ironclad Minotaur and Svart Basilisk are the most common techs against Sleep decks. But the problem is their ability can only be used once to counter sleep. Your window to draw these cards at the right time and use them for a fatal attack is very narrow.
Also, with a plethora of ways that BWD can sleep your creatures, a single-use ability is not enough to break the sleep loop that BWD generates and which makes the game against BWD, not the most fun to play.
Including these cards as tech to sleep gives a small upside or it makes it even more of a disadvantage to other archetypes rather than using that slot for a more useful/synergistic card to your build.
Light has the best card to counter sleep with Radiant Dawn but the meta has not been too kind to Light players. But that's another problem altogether which might be resolved in the upcoming core refresh.
CARD MOCK-UPS
Just for fun, I've made some mock-up cards.
CONCLUSION
The best part of this proposed solution to sleep mechanics is it won't make BWD or Deception Sleep archetypes too weak or obsolete. Death still has the best creature removal cards in the game. It just needs to work more to win rather than just passing each turn until they reach the critical 7+ mana territory where they are almost invincible.
Let me know what you think about this idea and if you have other suggestions for the GU team to nerf sleep in the game.
May the mulligans be in your favor!