Magic: the Gathering

[gloomy pagoda]

But that's the classic blue colour fantasy! I'm doing things, you aren't, and eventually I've got an overcosted 6/6 blob with flying!

[dense orchid]

Don't you speak ill of my Blorbo!

[gloomy pagoda]

I'm not! Being expensive adds character!

[dense orchid]

Also that's why we have Omniscience

Then Blorbo isn't overcosted

[gloomy pagoda]

Anyway, here's Wall of Wonder

[dense orchid]

TODAY IS GONNA BE THE DAY
GONNA FIREBALL AN ORC OR TWO

[gloomy pagoda]

It's funny how a bunch of early Blue creatures only have value in the matchup vs. Blue

There are a few creatures that can only attack enemies that control Islands, and some number of those (maybe all?) sac if you control no Islands

[leaden tide]

That was Wizards' early attempt to be flavorful. Merfolk/fish live in the water, so it makes no sense for them to be able to attack places that don't have water.

And if your ponds dry up, so do your fishies

[gloomy pagoda]

Oh, actually, those are almost always "bury", so that's just die, and not even a true sac, isn't it...

[leaden tide]

Nah that's sacrificing

[gloomy pagoda]

Absolutely, but it's still funny that nobody else gets that, or at least it's much rarer

[leaden tide]

"Bury" basically predated the unified use of sacrificing. But basically if an effect would make you destroy your own permanent in response to some condition, you could regenerate it to prevent that from happening. So "bury" was introduced as shorthand for "destroy it and it can't be regenerated."

Then after a couple years, Wizards decided that as shorthand it was too confusing. So they switched to "sacrificing" (which isn't destroying so it can't be regenerated (or later got around with indestructible)), and on some spells just spelling out that it can't be regenerated (like Wrath of God's now iconic text). You can see this evolution in the rules happen across DanDan's different printings.

(and also Wizard's attempt to keyword the can't attack/block/sacrifice thing

[lucid jewel]

Im just so glad that this addition to my deck played out the way I wanted

Its just such a perfect addition to my bumbleflower deck

[leaden tide]

Aye, glad the lesbians found a good home.

[lucid jewel]

those lesbians are never leaving that deck

i didnt get to play the other card i added the one with brain storm on a creature but that will be good too

https://cards.scryfall.io/large/front/6/1/617208ff-dd9b-44fd-a740-d3188081e5cc.jpg?1775937273

the kpop demon hunters card

[lucid jewel]

okay spent some time this morning fleshing out cards im considering for my bumble flower deck is there anything im missing that would be huge

https://moxfield.com/decks/LJT7l0Njckm5CqTO4wfsaA

[leaden tide]

The fish abs

[leaden tide]

If you're putting up insurance against decking yourself, there's also the Lab Man

[lucid jewel]

Already had it but stupid final fantasy being the cheapest it had a different name

[leaden tide]

Oh, okay yeah I missed that

[lucid jewel]

Fixed it up

is there any lands i should look at like the verges and things

WAIT THERES FULL TEXT TERAMORPHIC EXPANSE

i might need that

its only $5 as well

[leaden tide]

idk, I try not to think about lands too much. I have my semi-budget package that I put in everything and don't think twice about.

[lucid jewel]

yaa i guess

ill focus on the rest

[dense orchid]

I'm a big fan of forced fruition work Bumbleflower

Then again, that card summarizes how I want to win with the bnuuy

[lucid jewel]

ooooooooo

i love that actually

i am moving towards more and more draw things and mabey milling out my opponents is a fun wincon every now and then

https://i.imgur.com/HMwvhb5.png

got a decent ammount of things to think about adding

[dense orchid]

https://tenor.com/view/smile-evil-evil-smile-big-smile-fake-smile-gif-7484414434879832264

[lucid jewel]

is there anything else in the milling out my opponent land i shoudl think about

[dense orchid]

Mathemagics would fit nicely in too

[lucid jewel]

TRUE

[dense orchid]

It needs work, but here's my Bumbleflower decklist
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HPx08OkS6reg1gMmTc5-Buuw7yiTW2HU/view?usp=drivesdk

[lucid jewel]

https://i.imgur.com/ik0Zuen.png

i just added these to considering

[lucid jewel]

i dont have access

[dense orchid]

Try now

I just updated permissions

[lucid jewel]

that works ty ty

ill make a quick moxfield link

https://moxfield.com/decks/cMIRqv50H0WutConjBWdkQ

heres yours

then ill bring up the compare

https://moxfield.com/decks/LJT7l0Njckm5CqTO4wfsaA/compare/cMIRqv50H0WutConjBWdkQ

[leaden tide]

Somehow, the turtles returned.

[surreal stag]

moxfield i just want to swap printings on my cards. stop crashing

[leaden tide]

Alright folks. Wish me luck.

[surreal stag]

you rippin everything?

[lucid jewel]

Oh dam

I wish I could do a draft of that with you

Good luck

[leaden tide]

Yep. I got one to rip, one to (hopefully) draft.

Think I did alright. :3

[surreal stag]

yea thats a pretty sweet pool!

[leaden tide]

I got some good staples, a few value pieces I can keep or sell, and, most importantly,

A second Mothers Yamazaki!

My foil for the box was Flusterstorm, that one I'll almost certainly sell because A) I have a Mystical Archives one and B) the foil version specifically is worth $60

[tepid stirrup]

Someone sent the game director of Warframe enough proxied cards with Warframe art to make a Commander deck

She's over the moon about it

[lucid jewel]

you got links?

[tepid stirrup]

She just said it

Unfortunately

No pictures that I know of

Got it from a fan when they were in Brazil

[leaden tide]

Damn, wonder what kind of deck it is. That sounds fun!

[turbid falcon]

Ooh jealous of the Dack

No Indicate though, which is my favorite white card

And by white I mean the testing card

[leaden tide]

I know, I want an Indicate badly. Luckily the playtest cards don't go for too much on the secondary market.

I also would have loved a Muragandan Eldrazi

[charred ruin]

"You"

[leaden tide]

Legit would be great in a Reparte deck

[lucid jewel]

I love that card

Can you get me some better images of those white cards you pulled

[leaden tide]

White border? Or playtest cards?

Here's all of them lol

[lucid jewel]

Playtest

Ty

I was just curious what some did cause the names were cool

[leaden tide]

Yee. I kinda want to run Pyromancy 101 in my burn deck.

[lucid jewel]

Its just prepared

I like it

Well prepared with "deal 1dam"

Dont worry about it is silly

[charred ruin]

The banding card lol

[leaden tide]

Yeah I need to get on making a Banding commander dec

Hm there's 45 Selesnya cards that interact with banding, that might be enough to make it work!

https://scryfall.com/search?q=(oracle%3Abanding+or+oracle%3Abands)+commander%3Aselesnya&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name

[charred ruin]

How does banding work again?

[leaden tide]

From the oracle text of every banding card:

(Any creatures with banding, and up to one without, can attack in a band. Bands are blocked as a group. If any creatures with banding a player controls are blocking or being blocked by a creature, that player divides that creature’s combat damage, not its controller, among any of the creatures it’s being blocked by or is blocking.)

Basically, banding lets you control how the other players' creatures assign damage across your band.

[charred ruin]

I see

[slender moss]

I've seen people meet success with this as their commander

[leaden tide]

I imagine that's a very good commander for Tempest Hawk

[slender moss]

She's been erata'd to say 'birds' ofc

[leaden tide]

Of course.

Also, for the record, I can and will put the kitty and Emeritus of Ideation in a deck together.

Also will snatch up a copy of that Invasion that lets you convoke spells.

[slender moss]

Also works with the black Emeritus

[slender moss]

Segovia

[leaden tide]

Yeah that one

If I get all 3 on the board, I can just force the table to instantly draw their entire decks

[slender moss]

The issue is that you have to flip Segovia first

Which is fine if you have Emeritus as a flier and the person defending has no blockers

[leaden tide]

Yep. It's not a "must win by this combo" anyways.

This is the commander of that deck, my main planned wincon is to just draw the entire deck and win with Lab Man/Jace. But if I get to assemble the combo during that process, well hehehehe

And I'm not building this purely as a control deck either. I'll have some counters and bounce spells. But I'm also gonna do a lot of flashing in creatures during combat/end steps.

[lucid jewel]

yassssssss

[leaden tide]

Oh gosh, I just clocked that Magus of the Chains has the flowchart in its art

[charred ruin]

I need that card in every deck I play against a specific friend

[turbid falcon]

Ah nothing like mail day, when you get all the stuff you ordered

And by then you've realized there are at least 3 cards you ordered that you no longer need

But I did get my 2 flashbacks which is good, I'm absolutely certain this is gonna be a $20 card in a year

No one can convince me it won't see play in literally every format ever

[leaden tide]

I don't know about a year necessairly, but yeah it's definitely gonna creep up once SoS is out of print.

Erode also will stay up if they don't print it as often as they do Swords and Path.

[leaden tide]

I took another gander at the gives-convoke tag and I think this one would work too. Not in the colors for my deck, but in general.

[turbid falcon]

There is nothing more painful than cutting cards sigh

You eventually get to a point where you don't want to cut more cards but you still have 15 cards more to cut

[leaden tide]

Tbh I've come to find it a little easier than adding some cards sometimes. At least how I've been building decks recently.

If I'm paying attention to the card count as I'm adding stuff, I just agonize over which of an option might be the better choice. So I have trouble figuring out what to add.

[turbid falcon]

Problem is I made a pile of cards first

[leaden tide]

But if I'm making cuts, I can look at things like curve, role in the deck, etc. to start looking for places where there's redundancy

[leaden tide]

Oh like physically. Hmm yeah I can see how that'd be a problem.

I was gonna ask if we could maybe help, but that doesn't work without an online list RIP

[turbid falcon]

Curve is irrelevant, its an x spell deck
and yes a physical pile of cards
I'm currently looking at roles

[leaden tide]

Oh what deck is this? You'd mentioned you weren't happy with the Witherbloom deck.

[turbid falcon]

Its Magus Lucea kane

I drafted a list for it online but I'm now doing it the hard way cuz I dug through my collection lmao

[leaden tide]

Ahhh I see I see. Yeah that makes sense.

[turbid falcon]

https://archidekt.com/decks/21788458/x2y

Deliberately leaving this as more of a bracket 2 deck for a new group I might start playing with this week, can't have all my stuff flubs all over the place

And yes, your eyes do not deceive you, I did include Arena in this deck

Its a funny land, and given the deck is pretty light on removal, I think it'll be funny

[kindred whale]

I've been getting into MtG recently
👀

[leaden tide]

Ah Arena, the original fight spell

[leaden tide]

Oooooh! What you been playing with?

[spare harbor]

I’m worried about your land count, especially since arena doesn’t tap for mana, and temple of the false god is a bold plan with that low of a land count

[turbid falcon]

How dare you bring up such a reasonable concern that I've considered myself

I'm currently testing on the assumption that there's enough card draw and other ramp that it shouldn't be an issue

Plus my commander literally taps for mana

[lucid jewel]

im enjoying this deck in bo1 ranked standard too much https://mtga.untapped.gg/constructed/standard/decks/5393/mono-blue-elementals/AAQAAQADjgPgvTGWiAcCp8sxit0QB7ox0FDevjChkQSI9wLXognY-wEBFIwFAA

[surreal stag]

what is bo1 even mean, i see it all the time

[surreal stag]

9 ramp + mander is just enough but maybe focus on which turn you do the ramping? 2 mana ramp is mander on turn 3

[lucid jewel]

Best of one

Its the most popular format on arena

Even if its not the "real standard" format its my favorite format

[surreal stag]

same here i just never learned what it meant

[lucid jewel]

Its still super competative tho even if you dont have sideboard or multiple games

[surreal stag]

oh yea im aware, im finally back at PLat 2 for the first time since my first season on Arena

[lucid jewel]

You got this

I think my highest was a couple months ago I got to mythic 95%

So once you get to mythic you get a % and then once it gets to like 99 or something it goes to top x player

[surreal stag]

nice

i will never concern myself with such lofty goals lol

D4 is my best ever and if i can hit that again with Witherbloom Demons ill be happy

[lucid jewel]

https://mtga.untapped.gg/constructed/standard/decks/5147/orzhov-skeletons/AAQAAQGNBQABiKIyDogFtnTomQLa7SmAV-88rbUDI6gCjooEuPEC2w_H3gfQ8QEAAA

This is the deck that got me there

Its still super good and really conpetative it literally just spams dam and board presence

[surreal stag]

if i spend that many rares again its for Abzan Blech lol

[lucid jewel]

And has a decent removal package

[surreal stag]

i love that boy

[spare harbor]

I think in this case cutting evolving wilds, temple of the false god, and terramorphic expanse for mastics might be a move

With that low of a land count tapped basic fetches are probably not ideal, as they do a little bit of deck thinning in the opposite way you want if you’re relying on card draw

And false god honestly shouldn’t count as a land slot

[turbid falcon]

again you're assuming I'm looking to fine tune this deck

I'm not

This is a deck for playing with some much lower power players than I normally do
So, slower mana, less removal, more just big beaters

If this were one of my babies I would feel differently but this is very much a casual project at best lol

[spare harbor]

Totally fair

[turbid falcon]

Example of one of my babies

Behold the frog

https://archidekt.com/decks/8804969/flubs_land_storm

I would kill for my frog deck I love him so much

[spare harbor]

Me with my pir and toothy deck

I love it when I’m in danger of decking myself nearly every game

[turbid falcon]

That being said my playgroup fears the frog

I rarely get to get past turn 5 when I play this deck so I rarely get to do the really silly stuff I've built in

[spare harbor]

My playgroup is so inbred it’s so funny

[lucid jewel]

he is a good frog

[turbid falcon]

He also plays like no other deck I've ever played
I've had many landfall decks over the years, but none of them were as fun as Flubs

[spare harbor]

For example a couple of them are like the biggest skullclamp fans ever, leading to this message in our discord:

yo at what point do we start teching thieving skydiver to steal opponent's skullclamps

[surreal stag]

Maldhound video showed me there are creatures that ETB brainstorm. added two of those to my list and finally remembered to look for this guy.

pretty good in a "i swing my entrie baord every turn" deck.

Welcome to the Knights of the Interdimentional Round Table.

[lucid jewel]

Grabbed this

Probs gonna upgrade it to abzan bats

[lucid jewel]

This bats deck list is so good im excited to play some standard

[surreal stag]

Is it to late to show you the profs video on it’d be cheaper to buy the singles? lol

The list is pretty good I’ll be honest

[lucid jewel]

I dont care too much

I know his vid came out about that

But it was more getting it all in a single purchase

And not having to figgure it all out

And my partner was like " im not enjoying commander its too much" so its some magic to play together at home

[surreal stag]

Oh hell yes those decks are great for that

[lucid jewel]

Before these few decks came out I was arguing for them hard

Because they are a really good intro post knowing the game

So like jumpstart to these to commander precons

Is such a cool pipeline

[leaden tide]

Played my thoughness deck a bit more and I think it might also be a stealth drain deck. Gonna have to consider that as I rework it to try and sort out its curve.

This guy puts in work.

Though, not as much work as last week when I sacced Tree of Perdition to draw a third of my deck.

[molten maple]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/Seahawks/s/jshRSHSggr

Leonard Williams is so cool

My GOAT

[leaden tide]

cool
plays the One Ring
Pick one

[molten maple]

He played mono green stompy, that is cool!

[leaden tide]

Yeah, the One Ring was taking up a slot that could have been a big stompy creature

[surreal stag]

We back to diamond 4 baby!!!

[lucid jewel]

Woooo

[kindred whale]

I've made two commander decks so far, a rakdos judith one and a simic aesi one.
The aesi deck is kinda a meme because my real goal with it isnt winning but making all the mana.
once I have all the mana I'll mill everyone and win but the real goal is mana :3

I've only played once via untap.in

[turbid falcon]

Ah Judith sends me back

The guy who taught me how to play Commander had a Judith deck

[molten maple]

Oh, Judith seems fun for a spell slinger deck

[turbid falcon]

Oh not that one, this one

I'd play Niv, he'd play Judith, and we'd just ping each other to death

[lucid jewel]

im just having fun with silly decks and idk if can be assed to rank up high this month

[surreal stag]

i found a good deck i like to play so im just seeing what i can get out of it

[lucid jewel]

which deck

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/nu8CuKyALEaoakYg-kqatQ

[lucid jewel]

cool i think ill try that out

i think i have the wildcards for it today

[surreal stag]

the only thing im missing is the best of best lands

but im doing okay

[lucid jewel]

oh can you do up a version with those lands for me

cause i have all the lands or like most of them

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/mS6LOO8wTU6wxyqRkmJxzw

this is the og list

[lucid jewel]

yaa ill probs use that since i have all da lands

[surreal stag]

ill say this. If you dont have card draw in the opening hand, mulligan

[lucid jewel]

sounds like a plan

https://i.imgur.com/cshGY3x.png

[leaden tide]

Card draw? I thought that was the artists' job

[lucid jewel]

why it got 61 cards

also yes i love putting that duress as my duress

[leaden tide]

You eat one before each match

[lucid jewel]

the chains one is also good

[surreal stag]

my list was a little off but the Ash list is at 60 cards

[lucid jewel]

there we go i got it sorted

[lucid jewel]

deck is working well

will mabey try some best of 3 with it later today since it has a sideboard

[surreal stag]

yea im a big fan, lots of value engines, cheeky ways to get demons on the baord wtc wtc

[lucid jewel]

lots of removal

more than i expected

[surreal stag]

lots of silver bullets

the midrange speical

[lucid jewel]

@surreal stag if im vsing a super controlly match up in the best of 3 what do you think i shoudl swap in or out

[surreal stag]

mayeb Surrak for more card draw?

or leatherhead to destroy stuff like periouls snare etc etc

[lucid jewel]

https://i.imgur.com/0mhV60h.png

this is what it looks like

i swapped in some graveyard things and some stuff about targeting my things

[surreal stag]

yea i like that

[lucid jewel]

i beat him

quite fast

2-0

and now im vsing a mono green thing

lost that 1st match

then this is what i did for the 2nd match with sideboards

in this second game im drawing nothing but lands

won that match now its 1-1

[kindred whale]

My judith deck was a spellslinger

[lucid jewel]

i lost the 3rd game cause i drew only lands

this game sometimes just gives you lands

[leaden tide]

Sounds like you didn't believe in the heart of the cards.

[acoustic wedge]

Sometimes the line to your win con isn't always clear, but if you trust in your deck, you can succeed. Heart of the cards, babyyy

[lucid jewel]

i didnt

[surreal stag]

got my ass handed to me by mono white random BS go

and then Izzt lessons quit on turn 6

you love to see it

[leaden tide]

Love random BS go

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/ocecjGInTEujH2LCt8N2Aw

instantly spent 5k on quick draft. this one should go much better

[leaden tide]

This is the only time I'm gonna post a Marvel preview here.

But, guess what folks?

The New York pizza block continues

[plush bear]

At least that pizza looks normal

[acoustic wedge]

Man now i want pizza

[slender moss]

Chicago Style Deep-Dish enjoyers continue to seethe, rage, and cope

[turbid falcon]

Me, buying new cards: oh nooooo, they only have the really nice printing of the card I want, I guess I'll just have to buy the really pretty card, what a shame

Look if I'm going to bling any deck its gonna be my Niv-Mizzet deck, hes my baby, and has been ever since I started playing magic

[surreal stag]

Don’t worry I played one game without building the deck and then went 1-3 overall. More wasted gold……

[turbid falcon]

https://archidekt.com/decks/18308149
Alrighty I think this is gonna be the final list for this deck, I just switched in some more artifact tech
Testing has shown it does what I initially built it to do, really interesting things with artifacts like nothing else I've ever played with
A few more high powered artifacts added I had lying around (cough cough portal to phyrexia) and now I think it should actually be able to win games
Though not quickly, definitely uniquely

There's SO much cool tech in this deck, earthbending is so neat

Gonna do some more testing, and if the deck can actually close out games I'm sending on the rest of the list I haven't already picked up

[molten maple]

https://archidekt.com/decks/21681905/vigor_hidden_commander

I am really struggling to make the final few cuts for my Vigor hidden commander deck...

the idea is to tutor vigor, spam a huge number of fight spells which both kills my enemies and ramps me, then win by swinging out

I need 3 more cuts, its hard

[turbid falcon]

You have 105

Uh, where are your lands

I think you're going to need more than 2

[molten maple]

34 of those are in the "TBD" pile which I have actually cut

and I have 3 MDFCs

I plan to run 35/36 lands + 3 MDFC

[turbid falcon]

Well my first recommendations is add those lands post haste

Even if you just throw in basics as a stand in for now

That's what I often do before I need to figure out the specifics of a mana base

[molten maple]

im not worried about the mana base yet

mana base is going to be like 80% basic forests/mountains

a few fetches and dual color lands

I am thinking I should maybe cut draw. I have 7 draw spells here, which isnt a lot, but my commander functions as a draw engine so it is perhaps unneccessary to load up on a ton of draw

one of these 3 I will cut, not sure which one though. Terrasymbiosis will draw the most cards, but it does require Vigor to be on the board and for me to have a fight spell, or my opponents to choose to attack/block me

massive payoff though

Tribute to the world tree is less draw but easier to execute. Wildspeaker is the easiest to pull off, but non-repeatable

[turbid falcon]

Id cut tribute

[molten maple]

Ok I made my cuts

I ended up tentatively cutting wildspeaker, but im going to buy the card and try alternating it with tribute/terrasymbiosis, and eventually cut whichever one feels worst in practice

[turbid falcon]

Wow, gotta compliment Mana pool on making buying a list of cards ridiculously easy

I purchased from my LGS first as I usually do, but everything else I was able to buy in like 3 minutes on mana pool

And thats it, deck completely purchased

There were definitely some expensive staples I had to purchase but I think this deck is gonna be more than worth it, I'm super excited

[molten maple]

Hmm maybe ill try it for the deck I just built

[surreal stag]

cut Aggravated assualt. dont double combat until you know one combat can kill soemone. then you go for a thescond onwe to kill two people

[leaden tide]

Oh this looks like loads of fun

[lucid jewel]

Legit they are the best place online right now to get cards

By far

[rare sparrow]

Yeah, i have found them to be a big improvement over tcgplayer personally

Their cart optimization features are much better

[turbid falcon]

It's been a while since a deck I built resonated so strongly, I'm really excited to actually jam this deck

Probably since I built Omo

Not that I haven't enjoyed building other decks since then, it's just... There are a few decks that I've built that once I build them, I know they're my decks permanently. Most of my decks will eventually get torn apart to make something else, but there are a few decks I've built that I will literally never tear apart. Niv, Magnus the red, Omo, and Flubs being the ones that come to mind

[molten maple]

It was already in the cut pile

[molten maple]

Toph is so cool man... deck looks super fun, let us know how it goes

[surreal stag]

Yea I saw the list with 139 cards. I wasn’t paying attention to the sideboard. Archidect 🤮

[turbid falcon]

What's wrong with archidekt

I'm quite happy with how useful it is

Else I'd probably have not been using it for all these years lol

[rare sparrow]

I prefer moxfield in basically every way

I don’t like archidekt auto sorting into themes or whatever instead of card types

I like “card names and hover to see image” rather than a bunch of visual stacks of cards

I find the UI much cleaner in general too

[molten maple]

I dont really have a preference

I use archidekt because its what I first used

Man, the nice thing about (mostly) monocolored decks is that the land base is hella cheap

[turbid falcon]

I mean archidekt has a ton of sorting tools and a ton of customization which I use, also all the math stuff for checking percentages and curves

[rare sparrow]

Yeah, the sorting tools you mention are all things i don’t use and don’t want to have to deal with when someone links a deck to me. I don’t want to see a deck sorted into how many board wipes, ramp spells, etc. it has , i’d just rather see “creatures, instants, sorceries…” when i look at a decklist

[turbid falcon]

I guess if you're just looking for a short list yeah I get that, but I use it as a building tool and it's pretty great at that

Archidekt + scryfall + thumbing through my collection is essentially how I build decks

[leaden tide]

Yeah you can set the default view to be both "list with mouseover images" and to sort by card type.

[molten maple]

Oh man

Manapool really is so much better than TCG Player so far... havent actually played my order, but they actually had the cards I wanted in stock, had much better prices, and didnt pull from a gazillion different sellers

Hallelujah

Now I just have to hope the cards actually ship/arrive in a reasonable time

Guys I built a deck for less than $500 this time, are you proud of me?

😎

[lucid jewel]

They are rather speedy

Im also proud of you

[leaden tide]

Good job, good job

[rare sparrow]

I hope for your sake when you are talking about repeatedly building decks for $500+ you’re not regularly buying that much in new cards for a deck. And that $500 is just what the decks are worth but you reuse a bunch from your existing collection

[molten maple]

Problem is I have no collection to build from

I started from scratch a year or so ago

Its not like I have built that many decks tho tbf. This is my third

[rare sparrow]

Ah ok, not too bad then

You’re still building up stuff you can reuse in the future

[turbid falcon]

Yeah collection occurs over time
Took me years to slowly amass enough of a collection where now I can build budget decks more or less on a whim

Should I have bought the fancy lotus field
Maybe not but look it's so PRETTY

[leaden tide]

Not even foil fake Lotus Field fan smh

[fierce dragon]

Lotos field

[turbid falcon]

Holy crap I just had the nuttiest of Magnus the Red games
Turn 2 Magnus, turn 3 Locust god, had all 5 creature hits of my deck on the board turn 4, threatening lethal turn 5 (Ovika, Niv Mizzet Parun, Prismari, Locust God, and Zaffai and the Tempests)
I've never even had all 5 of my creatures on board before, much less on turn 4

It was basically board wipe or bust since I was tapped out, and they didn't hit it

Shout out to rapturous moment for basically being a one card engine lmao

[leaden tide]

Damn, that's spicy.

Rapturous Moment is really cool for Storm decks, yeah.

[surreal stag]

Nothing lol. I just started on moxfield and now that I have like 1000s of cards globally tagged it is my right and honor to trash talk other deck building sites with no basis

https://tenor.com/view/muppets-christmas-carol-american-gif-19732702

They all do all the same stuff just in different ways

[leaden tide]

Alright folks, I need some help.

I'm currently trying to rework my Mardu deck, switching from Neriv, Heart of the Storm to Zurgo Stormrender as the commander, to hopefully have more reliable access to card advantage.

But I need some help making cuts.

Preferably non-creature cuts, and things that aren't token generators.

https://archidekt.com/decks/22417398/mardu_test

[charred ruin]

ZURGO!

I am not experienced enough to help, but the main set version of Zurgo (mobilize 2, warriors can't be sacrificed) is one of the three Mardu decks I rotate between with my friends online

The other two being Alesha and Isshin

[leaden tide]

Yeah, the other one is cool too, but I wanted a deck that isn't just "grab every card with mobilize"

[charred ruin]

Mine has some of that but is also warrior tribal with an equipment subfocus

I just really like tribal decks so that Zurgo appeals to me muchly

I should go buy the Mardu precon

[leaden tide]

The Mardu precon has some fun stuff yeah

[charred ruin]

If literally nothing else it will give me a physical deck for my favorite color combo and I'll have the mana base to start building out my own deck

[leaden tide]

Okay I'm not happy but I moved some stuff to my maybeboard

[lucid jewel]

https://scryfall.com/card/tle/55/sundial-of-the-infinite

theres a version of this thats only 11$

if you want that at all

[leaden tide]

I'm not particularly concerned if my creatures die at end of turn. Zurgo drains folks if that happens, or better yet, gives me cards if that happens during combat (so myriad, etc.)

[lucid jewel]

ahh true i forgot it was that one that drains when they die

so you kinda want things to be dying in a semi consistent manor

[leaden tide]

Yep. The original title for this deck (which I might keep) is "Here For a Good Time Not A Long Time" which I think summarizes its strategy pretty well.

[lucid jewel]

Love that name

I dont really have recommendations beyond the normal life gain/drain aristocrat type stuff

That im sure you've thought of

[leaden tide]

Yep. I opted to go for more impact tremors effects than blood artist effects.

[turbid falcon]

Alright I'd be down for another attempt at playing tonight, maybe after 7 MT

[leaden tide]

I'm also down if we end up firing

[lucid jewel]

Ive got a packing adventure with a friend then a bonfire and some food

So I wont be there tonight

[turbid falcon]

@acoustic wedge you down?

[acoustic wedge]

Ya, should be!

[sleek valley]

I can probably make it for 7 MT

[turbid falcon]

Awesome that means we have 4
See y'all then

[acoustic wedge]

What we playin on?

Also what bracket?

[turbid falcon]

I'm chill with whatever bracket, but I prefer spelltable

[leaden tide]

I aim for bracket 2 with my decks.

[molten maple]

Whats spelltable? Just an online simulator so you can play with your friends?

Ah, I see, just looked it up. Seems pretty cool

It also seems tricky to set up in a place where you can get a camera on your play mat and also a screen to see everything though

[acoustic wedge]

If we're doin spelltable/real cards I've only got 1 deck lmao

[turbid falcon]

I recommend cardboard boxes

I used that to prop up my phone for a while before I gave up and bought a tripod

[acoustic wedge]

I've got an external webcam that lives atop my monitor - neat thing about it, it's got a lil kick stand so it can "hug" the back of your monitor no matter the shape. Increased the angle of said kick stand, and boom. got a good angle lol

[turbid falcon]

Well that certainly works better than cardboard boxes

[acoustic wedge]

mfw I'm set up an hour early

[sleek valley]

Spelltable doesn't seem to want to recognize my phone today, for some reason. I'll see if I can do some more troubleshooting, but may not be able to do it. Was there a 5th person who would be able to step in?

[turbid falcon]

I might be a bit later than 7

Maybe more like 7:30

[lucid jewel]

You can I believe screen mirror from moxfields deck tester thing

I think glam was planning to do that

[leaden tide]

Currently no, I have a phone setup I can use just fine.

My dresser is right next to my desk, so I just prop my phone up there and use it as a camera. It's not idea but it works well enough.

[turbid falcon]

You can see his board state so thats all that matters

[sleek valley]

I was able to get it working, apparently you can only do the connect to phone option over wifi :/

[leaden tide]

Is there a room open already? Or are we still waiting on Steel?

[acoustic wedge]

i was waitin on the lad, i've never used this before so lol

[sleek valley]

https://spelltable.wizards.com/game/OYa1_ehpfioF3QKrF8BJD is the one I'm using to test, but if there isn't a room already we could use that, I guess

[leaden tide]

Cool, I'll join in a few, unless Steel has good reason to use a different one

Hmm I'm stuck connecting to server, it looks like

[acoustic wedge]

i see u in the game

[leaden tide]

Yeah but my phone isn't connecting. And I cant see either of your videos.

[acoustic wedge]

ah

try backing out and rejoining ig?

[leaden tide]

Done that onece already. WIll try again.

No dice

[acoustic wedge]

only other thing I could think of would be to check your internet connection...

[leaden tide]

Yeah tried that too. :/

[acoustic wedge]

:/ indeed

[leaden tide]

Hmm maybe it was one of those Firefox issues?

Is that what I did last time?

[sleek valley]

They do say to use Chrome in the troubleshooting guide, so if you're on Firefox that might be part of the issue. Maybe clear chache and cookies if you haven't already done so as well.

[leaden tide]

I used Safari when I got this to work last time, but now that's not even working.

[plush bear]

I honestly forgot Safari existed

[acoustic wedge]

As one should

Also idk where steel be at either lol, this might just be a wash...

[leaden tide]

Yeah I don't know what else to try. I've tried different browsers, private windows, putting my phone on wifi, putting it on celular....ugh.

[acoustic wedge]

Since it's not an app I can't even suggest uninstall/reinstall...

ig full restart is the last thing to try?

[sleek valley]

Is your computer wired or on wifi?

[turbid falcon]

Sorry for being late, my friend's birthday celebration went long lol

Do we want to use Gaming 2 or something

[acoustic wedge]

sure, glam's got connection trouble tho

[leaden tide]

I think i'm in now

[acoustic wedge]

yeah

[leaden tide]

8th? 9th? time's the charm?

[sleek valley]

That was the first time trying a double sleeved commander deck and I can't say that I'm a fan. It's just so much of a pain in the ass to shuffle.

[leaden tide]

Oof, yeah that sounds like a pain.

I only double-sleeve my double-faced cards. Just single-sleeving is thick enough as it is.

[leaden tide]

Also, I was worried this would be the case, but I think this deck needs an even more fundamental rework than I tried today. I suspected that already, but ugh that was rough.

[leaden tide]

Hmm there's surprisingly few good clean ways to just create tokens at 1 or 2 mana. This is one if the best I've found so far.

[gloomy pagoda]

This one starts smaller, but it scales

[leaden tide]

Yeah I'll probably go for that. I'm currently looking at what my options are at 1 mana, but it looks like 2 mana is where the actual good stuff begins.

So my plan will probably be some kind of non-token value engine on turn 1 (Sol Ring, Reconnaissance, etc), then something that makes a token on turn 2.

What this does mean is that I'll likely want to skip 2mv ramp. Maybe go light on 3 mv ramp too since my goal is to get my commander down on turn 3, and swing the token from turn 2 to (hopefully) have it blocked and draw a card, or something.

Looks like these are my options at 1 mana lol. Everything else at 1 mana either is a creature that makes a token when it dies, or has some requirement like exiling a card from a graveyard.

I'll look at 2 mana options, but for now these were listed with the 1 mana stuff because of X.

[gloomy pagoda]

technically this is an option at 1, but you can't really rely on it, and it helps everyone else

[plush bear]

There’s that 2 mana flash white soldier card. Cant remember the name

It creates a token

[gloomy pagoda]

If the plan's to swing on turn 3, this one might work

[leaden tide]

Yeah I know there's better options at 2 mana. Like I said, I'm looking at those tomorrow lol

[leaden tide]

Yeah I'm considering that one. But we'll see what I decide on because something I re-learned tonight is that effects that rely on you swinging are not that good when trying to catch up.

[gloomy pagoda]

Ah, I think you accidentally the tomorrow, I'll stop digging

[leaden tide]

Oh, yeah lol

I've had a long night

But I don't mind, I appreciate the help/thoughts

[leaden tide]

But yeah if the other person has a bunch of blockers and I don't have something like Reconnaissance or Duty Beyond Death ready, I really don't want to swing and loose my token generators.

I'm gonna probably keep a couple because some of them are just too efficient. Infantry Shield scales great and Dalkovan Packbeasts is harmless and folks don't bother blocking it (or I can politic it and send it at someone who's also behind, have them not block it on the condition I send the tokens somewhere else).

[plush bear]

https://assets.moxfield.net/cards/card-g3Dpp-normal.webp?312301998

[leaden tide]

We'll see if I have enough Soldiers to run them over other things. Mardu tends to thematically skew towards Warriors.

[stiff horizon]

Doesn’t that mean they’re functionally marked cards, being thicker than the rest of the deck?

I hate double faced cards tbh, I think it’s just bad design to A. bake an expectation of playing with opaque sleeves into the mechanics (drafts with MDFCs are nightmares, never enough of the blank cards to write in the name of the mdfc, you have to make it public when you draft one iirc) and B. require the clunky removing and resleeving of the card. Forget what the back does and want to weigh your options before casting one side or the other? Sucks to suck, in order to do so you’d have to completely reveal to your opponent you’re holding an mdfc

Something like split cards work so much better and achieve functionally the same thing. Rooms from duskmourn work fine for instance

[leaden tide]

Technically yes but A) I can't tell the difference and I'm not going to learn how to, and B) I'm the epitome of a casual player, I'm not going to play in an environment where that is strictly enforced.

[leaden tide]

Also, for the record Steel, this is my default land package (make sure you view on categories: multiple). Lands listed in Y only go in two-color decks, while things in Z go in every deck.
https://archidekt.com/decks/13082364/land_package

[leaden tide]

Guys I found the perfect 2-drop token maker

[gloomy pagoda]

Is it really Commander if everyone knows all the keywords?

[turbid falcon]

I do
Heck key words are easy (yes even banding, it's just essentially 2 abilities which is why it's confusing)
Being an izzet player I also have learned the ways of the stack, and I have even studied the dreaded layers

And the pros of double faced cards are many, there's a lot of design space you get from having 2 sides that you simply cannot from having 2 spells on the front
Plus, literally EVERYONE plays with sleeves. It'd be one thing to make that an expectation game wise if it weren't already happening, but from casuals to pros everyone uses sleeves

[upper moon]

I actually dont use sleeves personally, but im content using placeholders for dfcs

[gloomy pagoda]

I don't play MtG, but in games I do play, I prefer to sleeve for nicer shuffles

[turbid falcon]

Somewhere on my desk that is utterly covered in magic cards, there is an innkeepers talent I need

[leaden tide]

Honestly banding isn't even that complicated. It's just that you get to assign how the other person's damage is assigned when blocked/blocking.

[leaden tide]

Also I'm gonna ping you for this @turbid falcon, I genuinely want to know what you think.

[turbid falcon]

GOSH DARN IT I"M MISSING A SLEEVE

Not only that, but they came STRAIGHT OFF AN OLD DECK
WHICH MEANS I LOST A CARD 😭

and I just got a page not found for that link

[leaden tide]

Oh rip. Let me fix the settings.

Should work now.

[turbid falcon]

Man I love the tranquil lands

[turbid falcon]

Thankfully I am a hoarder and have held on to my extra sleeves including the extras they provide when you buy them and I was able to find an extra sleeve of the correct color, thus validating my bad habit
huzzah all is well

@leaden tide I think your lands are good, they're what I'd call a really solid budget landbase. Obviously you could upgrade it further for large amounts of money but realistically for most decks thats just unnecessary

[leaden tide]

Yeah obviously the bond lands and fetches would be better. But I'm not having issues with lands entering tapped very often at all with this default base.

Thanks.

[leaden tide]

Hmm you know what might work well in my tokens deck?

the bnuuy

[lucid jewel]

it will

thats a really nice card for that deck

[leaden tide]

Yep it scales fantastically. Not the perfect two drop as I still need to attack with it and I don't want too many token gens that depend on attacking. But that scaling is just too good.

[leaden tide]

Okay made an initial list of token generators (which will almost certainly get trimmed down somewhat).
https://archidekt.com/decks/22471549/here_for_a_good_time_not_a_long_time_version_whatever

The utter menagerie this produces is hilarious

[dense orchid]

Hmm I think you need more tokens. Not enough variety

[sleek valley]

These are the two that come to mind looking at that list, but Kingpin does also have the issue of being an attack trigger.

[turbid falcon]

tonight with my playgroup we are continuing to establish a universal law
Either Steel dies first, or he wins.

3 different playgroups this week, and yet that held absolutely true

[leaden tide]

Eh, too expensive for a deck that isn't goblin focused enough.

[dense orchid]

Shiko+3 blind mice. Oof

[past lava]

behold, a little guy

[leaden tide]

Just a lil' guy

I made a first round of cuts from my initial pile of ideas, but I still feel like I'm missing something here. And also like I should cut some things to make it more focused, but again not sure what. https://archidekt.com/decks/19097452/always_an_angel_never_a_god

(the idea is for it to be a lifegain deck with an angel subtheme, but the lifegain part feels a bit incoherent)

[leaden tide]

After a little goldfishing, I think I have a few too many engines and not enough cheap life-gain enablers. So now I need to figure out which engines/payoffs to cut. :(

[leaden tide]

Ugh, 100 (well technically 62 unique cards sounds like a lot, but it's surprisingly easy to fill up a deck with too much stuff.

[rare sparrow]

i looked at the deck quickly and my gut reaction was that you had too many one-off life gain effects and not enough payoffs for gaining life

also i'd maybe want to lean more on repeatable lifegain sources than one-off?

[sleek valley]

I don't think you have enough red to bother with Dragon's Claw, but Angel's Feather is a cheap life gain source that's also on theme.

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/vJfppY4JMUeQN3Zh8fczYg

this is my buddies deck if you want to take a look. He regualrly gets to 60+ life by turn 5

regardless of the bullying he receives .

https://moxfield.com/decks/55VwKdSWx0iY0-G8RO0m_g

In other news. WU deck challenge deck is complete

i think im heavy on equip cost coupons given i have a commander that does it but they are all cheaper that recasting dat boy

[charred ruin]

The reason why the Commander damage rule exists lol

[surreal stag]

unless youre Ben Brode whos response to that is "just dont play lifegain decks"

okay bud.....okay

[leaden tide]

I'm actually thinking that increasing the red in the deck is something I want. Specifically in the form of 2 or 3 mana hasty red creatures.

Idea being that I ramp into Bre on turn 3, then I untap on turn 4 with 4 or 5 mana and use her ability to give a hasty beater lifelink and flying.

[leaden tide]

Ooh I'll take a look. Thanks!

[turbid falcon]

Ah ben, arguing multiple deck archetypes should go in the bin because he doesn't like tracking things

[surreal stag]

Give Alexios Lifelink.....

[turbid falcon]

Now to be fair it does get annoying sometimes tracking commander damage
Which is why, if I were to change the rules of commander slightly, I'd make it so commander damage were a universal thing
Rather than it being tracked from individual commanders, you keep track of all damage from all commanders on one tally, and when that hits 21 you die

[surreal stag]

Voltron decks would run rampant on this

[turbid falcon]

Well yes and no

[surreal stag]

and big mana commanders would die out even harder than they have

[turbid falcon]

Individual decks wouldn't change much

[surreal stag]

well yea if you come out aggro the other three just take you out

[turbid falcon]

Frankly I've kept track of this in the back of my head and really this isn't something that would speed up many games I've played more than addition turn

[leaden tide]

You can also just go for Steel's solution in his Jeskai deck: Run an infect creature

[surreal stag]

meaning the "they are the problem" conversations/drama would possibly get worse and doing your thing in a big way is now a bad thing cuz you just die that much faster

[surreal stag]

becuase no one knew it was a rule idf guess

[turbid falcon]

They can already do that

[turbid falcon]

Well it wasn't it's just something I keep track of

[surreal stag]

but this would just make it three times faster

[turbid falcon]

No, it wouldnt

Because there are still 4 players

[surreal stag]

yea of course, if people knew that it would have changed choices i bet

[turbid falcon]

And at any playgroup, there's generally only 1-2 commanders that are actually focused on attacking rather than being value engines too risky to attack with

Not to mention Planeswalker commanders which don't contribute at all

This can obviously fluctuate, and there might be games where you do end up hyper aggrod on with a full pod of aggressive commanders, but I'd say that isn't that much different in practice from how some games already go

The only kind of deck I can really see abusing this would be a double partner Voltron deck for even faster kills

But one can only Voltron so hard

[turbid falcon]

Sometimes you need someone dead

You didn't play with our missing player

And his stupid antivenon deck

Sometimes infect is just the solution

[leaden tide]

You only need to count to 10 with infect on the board

Even with a double-striker voltron strategy, you still need to count to 11 at least.

[turbid falcon]

yup he would know, he infected me to death on Sunday
First of course
Because I always, always die first
Or I win

And frankly if I were to implement this rule, I'd probably also adjust the commander damage threshold to 25, though that's something I'm less sure about, just to account for incidental commander damage

That's something I'd want to test

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/55VwKdSWx0iY0-G8RO0m_g

i need two cuts.

[leaden tide]

I vote Skrelv for one of them, toxic doesn't scale (if it was infect it'd be a different story) and they have no equipment synergy.

I also think you have enough redundency in equipments to cut one, maybe Loxton Warhammer/Ghal Maraz?

[rare sparrow]

Enduring curiosity doesnt seem great. Your creature count is really low, it feels like it isn’t going to draw you multiple cards in a turn very often

Also unrelated to removing cards entirely but there’s no way i would play dispatch before swords to plowshares

Especially in a deck with only 28 artifacts

I’m not totally convinced on mantle of the ancients but I’ve also never played it. Seems much better in an aura deck where stuff is consistently going to end up in your GY than in an equipment deck where everything sticks on the battlefield if your creature gets removed

[leaden tide]

There's only 28 total, but they do have a lot of tuttors.

That said, it wouldn't hurt to run some artifact lands to up the hit count.

[rare sparrow]

i'm not saying i definitively wouldn't play it at all

but there's no way that you should play it over swords in this particular deck

you don't even really care about giving opponents life. it's a voltron deck, you're probably winning with commander damage

if you want two of the effect, dispatch is definitely worth considering over path to exile or erode though

[leaden tide]

Yeah, not saying you were. Just mentioning that the artifact lads might be a good swap.

Especially when three of them you can run in a 2c deck enter untapped

[surreal stag]

That’s a good point my dude

[surreal stag]

Thanks for taking a look

[fierce dragon]

I won commander night with this yesterday :3

[past lava]

beat to death by 3 copies of the same anime girl and their army of jellyfish

[surreal stag]

living out my dreams and then bragging about it

[spare harbor]

New bracket 1 deck idea

https://scryfall.com/search?q=otag:unique-cr-reference+legal:edh&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name

[charred ruin]

What does that search criteria mean?

[charred ruin]

Ah lol

[surreal stag]

im stuck on the deck for every color challenge. im up to 21 decks total so im not lackign for stuff to play.

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/pqqn9LZU-UypVvFY2UibVg

Try to mod my list. Get stuck in 10 cuts to make hell

[leaden tide]

Cathar's Crusade

Just ain't worth the headache

[surreal stag]

lol yeaaaa i know

[rare sparrow]

here are some i would cut with reasoning

1. cathar's crusade (as stated above)
2. ravnica at war--I used to play null elemental blast a bit (a single target removal/counterspell that only targets multicolored) and you'd be surprised how few cards people play that are actually multicolor
3. metallic mimic-- i somewhat understand the appeal here, but it's sort of anti-synergy with your commander since it won't be a pegasus/horse on the stack
4. buster sword-- cool card, but you aren't really doing the equipment thing much here and 5 is a lot of mana to pay before it does anything
5. flowering of the white tree--you aren't playing enough legends to benefit from the "good half" of the card. just an anthem effect is pretty weak.
6. felidar retreat: you don't do a whole lot of landfalling, and the tokens it makes don't have types that synergize with the rest of what you are doing
7. inspiring leader: your commander already pumps your team, i don't think you need another card that just pumps them more ONLY when you have your commander out

i purposely tried to avoid removing the creatures as much as possible, but tbh it still might be the right call to remove a few of the weakest unicorns/pegasi

you obviously don't want to cut many since you are already pretty limited on how many options there even are

i guess on the topic of flowering of the white tree, honor of the pure is just worse, so maybe cut that one instead. or cut both lol

[surreal stag]

yea this one has been rough, i saw a cool flappy horse and went "well they cant be that bad if i get double the creatures" i was wrong.

i mean, i could alwys just roaming throne and get 3 bad creatures for the price of one.

[turbid falcon]

ITS DONE
Got the last 2 cards for my Toph deck today, it's finally ready to run

Good thing I have a brand new group to test it out on tonight lol

[leaden tide]

Oh the poor bastards

[turbid falcon]

I in fact, did not pubstomp them

Even when my deck finally went off and I was bonking with a giant secret tunnel i was pounding my head against the wall that was a life gain deck 😭

[surreal stag]

Which Toph?

[leaden tide]

Metalbender, the three color one, iirc.

[surreal stag]

Nice

If it was gruul Toph I’d suggest Consant Mists. That thing goes nuts. You basically always have it up and an earth bent land to sac

[charred ruin]

My Mardu precon arrived!

Looks like it's about making as many tokens of various types as possible and then having them die, not really caring about which ones I make

With that in mind maybe Neriv is the better commander to run

[leaden tide]

Yeah Neriv and Zurgo want slightly different things.

Zurgo wants more consistent token generators so that there's always fodder to throw in the meat grinder.

[charred ruin]

Regardless, I can try out some games with this and then either upgrade if I like it or strip out the Mardu shell stuff and build something more like my digital warriors deck

Or an Isshin deck

Isshin goes in this deck no matter what happens, just not yet since I want to test against friends precons first

[turbid falcon]

I run neriv, he's funny

[turbid falcon]

Okay obscure layers rulings time
Ashaya says she is * / *. Earthbending says the creature become a 0/0
I'm pretty sure the way this works is that she does indeed become a 0/0 if I earthbend her, and won't get her land buff until she dies and returns unearthbent due to how static effects work, but I could be wrong

Oh goodness stupid

the * / * notation is extra silly here in discord

[rare sparrow]

you are correct that she will become a 0/0

star/star creatures have what's called a "characteristic-defining ability" that determines their power/toughness

and layer-wise, that's the first thing that gets applied

a. apply characteristic-defining abilities that define power/toughness
b. apply any effects that set power/toughness to a specific value (this is where earthbend would apply)
c. apply effects that modify p/t without setting it to a specific value (e.g. +1/+1 counters, anthem effects)
d. apply p/t swapping effects like twisted image

to me, it works the way you'd intuitively think it would other than maybe for twisted image effects

because, let's say you have a 2/5 that you cast twisted image on to make it a 5/2

if you cast some sort of +3/+0 effect on it later in the turn, it becomes a 5/5, not an 8/2, because the +3/+0 effect is applied in sublayer c, and then the swap happens in sublayer d

[kindred whale]

Anyone here have experience with the Tiny Leaders format?

[molten maple]

Devastating news: I ordered a new deck last week and 7/8 packages arrived but the final one with my 12 remaining cards is still not here for commander night 😭

Will I ever recover?

[lucid jewel]

No

Rip

[leaden tide]

Time for some basics and a sharpie I suppose

[surreal stag]

She does

[surreal stag]

Hell yea

[turbid falcon]

Welp I bought a one ring

It's exactly what Toph needed

[lucid jewel]

Toph needs to beat ppl up with the one ring ?

[turbid falcon]

Yup

[lucid jewel]

[turbid falcon]

Also it draws cards

[lucid jewel]

It also dies and re enters

[turbid falcon]

And given the nature of the deck I can control the burden counters very well

[lucid jewel]

Yaa its like perfect for that deck

[turbid falcon]

Yup that's my criteria for "staples" like the one ring

I need it to actually fit what I'm trying to do very specifically
I don't just add staples just to have staples

[lucid jewel]

Same with things like propaganda or rhyst8c

I dont add them unless it really fits through thrme

[turbid falcon]

I don't really add rhystic to anything lmao

I don't like it

So I just don't include it

[leaden tide]

https://tenor.com/view/destroy-the-sith-star-wars-it-was-said-that-you-would-destroy-the-sith-not-join-them-gif-16486235

[molten maple]

has anyone ever commisionned an alter for a magic card?

I saw this on reddit (by u/SilvijaBlue_Alters) and thought it was super sick

I kind of want to commission my own now, with Kindred from League of Legends as Neyith

[leaden tide]

I've made some digital reskins of cards that I've then printed out. But no I've not commissioned alters.

[turbid falcon]

I'll happily join the sith if it means my deck runs better and it fits within my deck building sensibilities

I'm doing a lot of testing on some small final edits
Of particular interest is the 0 -1 MV artifact package, because I have a ton of tutors for those

[leaden tide]

Are you running Urza's Saga?

[turbid falcon]

i am

[leaden tide]

Good, good.

[turbid falcon]

Urzas saga, Tezzeret cruel captain, Glassbright gearhulk

Probably another one I'm forgetting about

Okay never mind just those 3

But I can usually use each multiple times so those cards come out very consistently

[leaden tide]

Yeah makes sense.

[turbid falcon]

Yeah adding in Nutrient Block and Fountainport bell

Nutrient Block is funny, its an indestructible food I really like indestructible artifacts in this deck

[molten maple]

do you all think badgermole cub is getting banned in standard?

[leaden tide]

I'm leaning towards probably not.

If Badgermole Cub gets banned and nothing else, welcome back Izzet dominance.

Hell even if they ban the cub and a card from each top Izzet archetype, that might not be enough to break that color combo's hold on the format.

So it depends on how far Wizards is willing to go. There's obivously very powerful archetypes in the format and it's gotten very fast on average. But it's kinda an "If everyone's super, nobody's super" situation.

[turbid falcon]

I think the cub being banned will probably depend on what future sets hold

I don't think it gets banned based on current standard, but if there's anything else that takes advantage of it, I could see it becoming too powerful

Problem is, standard is both long rotation and many sets, so that likelihood is high

[leaden tide]

Cub + Llanowar is just a really really strong mana base, even without additional Earthbending shenanigans. And Llanowar Elves is in Foundations.

[molten maple]

its also like

super bizarre to me that craterhoof behemoth is standard legal

the synergy between the cub and behemoth is just so strong

[turbid falcon]

The cub is realistically, insane pretty much everywhere

it just does so much for so little

[molten maple]

true

I dont know how they thought that it was an OK card

[turbid falcon]

Free sac fodder? cub. Ramp? Cub. Landfall? cub. +1/+1 counters? cub.

[molten maple]

I will say though

[turbid falcon]

And, it only gets better when you have multiple

[molten maple]

I am playing standard for the first time in a while, and my more straightforward green landfall deck with tifa/bill/mossborn hydra/icetill explorer/travelling chocobo is performing very well against the cub decks

it is a little bit RNG though, if you dont draw Tifa/Hydra you lose

if you do draw them you usually oneshot them on turn 4

[lucid jewel]

I honestly think innkeepers talent and boomerang and other stuff like that is more of an issue

[molten maple]

ehhh

those were never even really played before cub (in standard)

[lucid jewel]

I do think mossborne hydra and craterhoof need to be deleted tho

Same with the warp doubler

[molten maple]

craterhoof is a "can I make 8 mana? yes? great then, I win" card

mossborn hydra is a "do you have removal for this? no? I win"

but tbf neither of those cards was problematic before the cub

[lucid jewel]

Idk tho, I honestly dont think the meta is in a bad state right now

[molten maple]

It has been for... a while lol

[tepid stirrup]

Iiiiiiiiiii don't know that I'd agree with this being true of Craterhoof in particular at all

[lucid jewel]

I wholeheartedly disagree with Robin about the meta

The meta most of this year in standard has been open wide and lots of real contenders for good competitive decks exist

And continue to flourish

Sometimes theres like one or two real decks and that just isnt what standard is right now

[molten maple]

Didn't izzet get like 7 decks in the top 8 of the most recent pro tour event, again?

[lucid jewel]

The individual pro tour events dont make a full standard meta also the most recent top 8 was dominated end of the day by selesnya landfall

If you wanna go by the pro tour top 8 this is 100% evidence for a healthy standard meta

Green is a little dominant but it was in the microcosm of that individual events meta

Not the standard meta on the whole

[molten maple]

Maybe im looking at a previous event then, hmm

[lucid jewel]

https://mtga.untapped.gg/constructed/standard/decks?wincon=bo3

Also if you scroll through here

[tepid stirrup]

Landfall does Kind Of A Lot right now but I'm not entirely sure that's even a new problem, just a problem masked by Izzet nonsense for a good year there

And this is strictly a smaller problem too

[molten maple]

Id rather landfall be goid than izzet prowess

[tepid stirrup]

Because Landfall is more adjacent to your interests I think

[leaden tide]

I mean. That's historically been a win threshold in 60 card formats. Like you said, it's the ramp package that's accelerating it so much.

[leaden tide]

Landfall has been a low-grade problem for as long as it's been Landfall.

It rewards you for doing the most basic thing action in the entire game.

Even ignoring the obviously broken cards, it's just a very good mechanic because it accrues free value.

[leaden tide]

Yeah. Green dominates some events, Izzet dominates others. There was a tournament recently where an Azorius control deck took the top spot.

[leaden tide]

I'd agree. The format as a whole is....kinda busted. But several strategies are equally busted at once.

[lucid jewel]

Ive seen ppl have big success the last couple weeks mardu monument discard stuff

[molten maple]

https://tenor.com/view/syndrome-incredibles-when-everyones-super-gif-10466529

[tepid stirrup]

Which is what Magic should be imo

[leaden tide]

Unironically though

[lucid jewel]

Secrets of strixhaven gave some really nice discard juice

[leaden tide]

Yeah. It's just not what people are used to from Standard.

[lucid jewel]

This card is busted af in that deck

[leaden tide]

Standard was originally meant to be the slower, more approachable, and most importantly affordable 60-card format.

[lucid jewel]

Well not even monument I dont think. Just discard shenanigans

[tepid stirrup]

Is affordability a goal of Standard?

Has it ever been?

[lucid jewel]

Not anymore

[tepid stirrup]

Doesn't feel like it

[lucid jewel]

I mean I really like the standard precons

[leaden tide]

Originally? Yes. But hasn't been hitting that goal in a while.

[lucid jewel]

Theres a life gain one they just came out with that's actually super close to some competative lifegain lists

Just needs to add the green package for life gain bugs

And the life gain elf

And lands ofc but that's a givin

[leaden tide]

Lands have always been the most consistently expensive part of Magic.

[lucid jewel]

I will be interested to see what standard looks like post rotation in 2028 I think theres some large changes that wont shake out untill then

[leaden tide]

Don't kid yourself by thinking that wasn't true 10 years ago just because the lands of that era are cheaper now.

The Temples from Theros used to be like $10 each because there weren't many other options.

[lucid jewel]

Yeppp

I memba

[molten maple]

Yeah I dont mind winning with 8 mana, but when you can do it on like, turn 4 consistently it's a problem

[leaden tide]

Although, the fetches have stayed about even in price over the years.

[lucid jewel]

And like verges are expensive now because of availability supply and demand bs

[molten maple]

They should really print more good dual lands

[lucid jewel]

Thwy have been

[molten maple]

Theyre soooo expensive

[lucid jewel]

Quite consistently printing good duals

[leaden tide]

The problem isn't lack of good dual land choices.

[molten maple]

If theyre like $15-20 I would argue they should be printing more

[leaden tide]

The problem is that Wizards puts them in the rare slot because they know it moves packs like nothing else.

And that's not gonna change any time soon because, well, it just works. You need lands to play the game.

[lucid jewel]

Sometimes I swear wizards invests in its own 3rd party market

[molten maple]

My favorite thing about my new Neyith commander deck is that the lands are like 80% basics

[lucid jewel]

Some of the decisions only make sense to me if they did that

[molten maple]

It saved me literally hundreds of dollars

[leaden tide]

And of course there's the Surveil lands, which are being played in every format.

Especially ones with fetches.

[tepid stirrup]

This cycle of dual lands did specifically get borked by the promotion of Spider-man to a Standard set

[lucid jewel]

Love the scrys and the surveils

[tepid stirrup]

Won't really matter until three years from now except insofar as some of them got delayed

[lucid jewel]

Card selection on a fetchable land is crazy

[lucid jewel]

Yaa 2028 is the standard meta im most curious about right now

[leaden tide]

It's gonna be weird having half of the shock lands in standard for a year.

Also it was so weird getting them with sets that weren't set on Ravnica.

At least Wizards didn't try to reprint the fetches into Standard with Dragonstorm.

Maybe when we go back to Zhalfir?

[lucid jewel]

[molten maple]

Sorry what rotates out in 2028?

[tepid stirrup]

Some but not all of the shock lands

[leaden tide]

And it's not a clean "some" either.

They wanted the ones in Lorwyn Eclipsed to match the creature types spotlighted in that set. So EoE got the rest which consist of three enemy colors and two allied pairs.

[lucid jewel]

Its also just that there current shift to the new standard rotation has had a full 2 cycles of rotation

Where we have foundations and then 2 rotations post foundations

[lucid jewel]

https://whatsinstandard.com/

[molten maple]

I see... well, there is an easy solution

reprint all of the shock lands in 2027

[turbid falcon]

Really I'd rather they go about reprinting the triomes

[tepid stirrup]

The likelihood of them diluting the format with a ton of shocklands and making them relatively cheap is, frankly, very low

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/ihVl-LgVqkeJDWRsvn3Nug

WUBRG deck is complete. All but 10 cards considered "staples" are from the plane of Lorwyn.

[leaden tide]

Wait a sec

Wait a goddamn sec

Don't tell me this thing is starting to spike again?

Today isn't even a Commander BnR! Why would it do this?

[lucid jewel]

wtf

you know thats hela sus

[leaden tide]

I'm reading on Reddit that some dip-stick content creators have put out videos hoping for it to get unbanned?

[lucid jewel]

smh, i hate ppl maniuplating ppl like that

[leaden tide]

And are apparently preying on the fact that some people assume this BnR will include Commander too (it won't, Gavin confirmed yesterday).

[lucid jewel]

and some of them will be doing it literally for their own pocket since this is a speculative asset now

[leaden tide]

Yeah it's incredibly predictable how it spikes before each Commander BnR, that I'm sure makes it quite easy to speculate with it.

[slender moss]

You can tell it's a good game if it accidentally recreates the stock market.

[tepid stirrup]

Hoping for it to get unbanned or hoping to spike the value so they can dump their cards?

[slender moss]

Really great games recreate the South Seas Bubble and the 2008 housing crisis.

Exceptional games do both at once.

[leaden tide]

Damn, that looks fun

[leaden tide]

I'm guessing the latter.

And they're pushing the narrative that it might get unbanned soon to convince people to start buying it.

[tepid stirrup]

Realistically I kind of expect Commander B&R activity to drop to at or near pre-WotC management levels as WotC's management of the format solidifies, with perhaps the exception of shifting cards from one tier to another

[leaden tide]

Yeah, once they get the bracket/GC list to where they're happy with it, there's not much to be done. Commander is naturally a very slow format, only cEDH really sees anything resembling a turnover. And even then the top archetypes have been the same for a couple years now.

Gavin did mention that there will be a Commander BnR check-in at some point this summer. But no specific date has been given yet.

[turbid falcon]

Stonks

Stonks for Steel anyway

[leaden tide]

No no no Steel, you need to hold until they actually announce the date for the Commander BnR. Then the real spike will start and you can make stonks

[tepid stirrup]

💎 🙌

[lucid jewel]

HODL

[acoustic wedge]

What's BnR...?

[leaden tide]

Banned and Restricted update

Where Wizards announces any bans (and somewhat more rarely, unbans) for their officially sanctioned formats.

[slender moss]

Also restriction in Vintage, not that anyone plays it outside of MTGO.

[lucid jewel]

okay but theres plenty of rich boomers who play vintage at heaps of LGS's

[slender moss]

I have never seen this

And I've been to a fair few LGSes

My LGS runs vintage with full proxies allowed but that's really infrequent.

[leaden tide]

(For Jazz's benefit, a card being "restricted" means you can only have one copy of it in a deck.)

This is how Vintage, the "everything goes and no bans ever*" format attempts to balance itself. And I think Timeless also has a restricted list.

*There's a few cards, stuff like Sharazad and dexterity/racist cards that are banned. But almost never for power level reasons.

Yet Companion from Ikoria managed to be so broken that it led to the first power-level ban in Vintage in decades, because Lurrus managed to break the most broken format ever.

[slender moss]

Also the ante cards are all banned because that was such a dumb mechanic that WotC expunged it

[leaden tide]

Yeah I lump Ante in with later stuff like Conspiracy or Stickers, where it's a supplemental mechanic that just doesn't work in constructed.

The original intention behind Ante was that it would ensure that the high-powered cards get passed around a given play group. Richard Garfield didn't expect folks to take Magic as seriously as everyone ended up taking it.

[slender moss]

(Ante was a mechanic by which cards could be removed from decks and go to the winner of a game)

[lucid jewel]

okay but the ante epp of commander at home where they joke about it and then sharazard is on top of ben brodes deck is hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7lSCN8-5ub4 im so glad we have him

[surreal stag]

ok so my mono white horses/pegasus/unciorn deck got trashed. it just was so....meh

now im trying a Lae'zel/Inspring leader set up with planeswalkers, make tokens, add counters, etc etc etc

[tepid stirrup]

As seriously as people started taking it basically immediately

[surreal stag]

do i still run This enchantment and just kinda pick the one i forsee being the most popular that game?

[tepid stirrup]

I've also always sort of suspected that in the early 90s people were doing basically nothing with cards in a sort of mass appeal sort of way that didn't involve some acknowledgement of gambling and Garfield was probably influenced by that, consciously or subconsciously I can't say

[acoustic wedge]

Ah ok makes sense

[leaden tide]

Yeah. I think he wanted some of that vibe, but also envisioned the game feeling more like a board game format than it did.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/banned-and-restricted-may-18-2026

No Standard changes, as I honestly expected.

[tepid stirrup]

Much rejoicing was had from Pioneer Enjoyers

I remember when CSC was banned the Pioneer world was like "what about us tho"

Is Umezawa's Jitte new-to-Modern somehow or something? Feels like a weird thing to throw on the ban list in 2026

[lucid jewel]

Standard

No changes

as i thought

no changes

that was actually a really well descirbed state of standard currently from them @molten maple you should read the above link about standard

its a really good description of it currenly

[gloomy pagoda]

I mean, my understanding of the history of it all is that before magic, the things people were doing with cards were playing cards, tarot cards, and sports cards. Ante as a mechanic probably evolved from marbles, and really, there was no precedent for how the Magic landscape developed, because there was nothing to be a precedent.

(On that note, it's kinda wild that 30 years later the first TCG is still the biggest TCG)

[lucid jewel]

the following is huge for me

Brawl
Written by Dave Finseth

No changes

Brawl is a challenging format to manage because players have a wide range of goals and expectations. Some players want the challenge of building a Brawl deck using an unconventional commander, others want to lean into a Universes Beyond theme, and some show up to showcase their skill and knowledge of the competitive metagame. All of these are great reasons to play Brawl that we want to continue to support, but it has been difficult to ensure the right types of players are being matched against each other.

To continue to improve the experience for all players, we are releasing our next iteration of Brawl matchmaking on Tuesday, May 19. This will be an experimental and major change to how Brawl matchmaking works so that it prioritizes finding opponents within similarly matched commander tiers disregarding the skill level of the opponent. We expect this change will increase the number of matches of similarly powered commanders while maintaining reasonable matchmaking times. With stricter commander-based matchmaking, we aim to pair players with similar expectations against each other and allow more space for experimentation. This is an intentional change to make unranked Brawl less competitively focused.

Lastly, I know a lot of players are waiting to hear what's next for ranked Brawl. Our experiments with a competitive ranked Brawl event have been productive over the last few months with a sizeable audience engaging the format. We have learned a lot as we dialed in the short banned list of commanders and are starting to feel more confident in the format. We are excited to announce what's coming next but need a few more weeks to finalize our plans. We expect to have an update before the next set release on MTG Arena.

i played the hell out of the ranked brawll mode

and i cant wait to see what they do with it in a few weeks

[leaden tide]

Isn't it getting unbanned?

[leaden tide]

Damn, I didn't read the whole thing. Guess they finally got tired of Oops, All Spells in Legacy

[tepid stirrup]

Oh u rite

That makes marginally more sense

[rare sparrow]

umezawa's jitte is a card that has never been legal in modern until today

banned since the inception of the format

[leaden tide]

I'm pretty sure someone's buying it up on the secondary market right now too

[rare sparrow]

i would be surprised if it even gets played

spending 2 to play + 2 to equip is too slow for modern

[leaden tide]

I hope so, just so I can laugh at all the folks trying to "invest" in it right now.

[lucid jewel]

the tmnt version is like $2.5

[leaden tide]

I just checked on mana pool and all the non-tmt versions have gotten bought up.

Market price was $8 this morning, the cheapest left is like $17

Also this just happened.

[lucid jewel]

OOF

thats crazy

[tepid stirrup]

Ah, the culprit

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/sbUc4uFTx0GbySywF-wCiw

if i find a planeswalker or Adaline this goes pretty hard,

said every mono white winnes deck ever

but it think i need to add more +1/+1 counter givers or just cut the "modified creatuers you control get (insert keyword)"

god damn D&R has got scryfall crashing

[leaden tide]

I think the internet is just struggling today. Reddit is also crapping out

[surreal stag]

or i dont make any changes and have this with a good hand

precombat main phase with the ability to just destroy every creature without counters before combat

tappwed PW to remember i used the abiltiy lol

[molten maple]

good god man get away from my Bill

(He doesnt know I still have 2 more)

his first 8 spells this game are exclusively removal and the authority of the consuls

literally all of them

make that 10

he never even tried to play a creature or anything that will actually win him the game, I cant. He just spammed removal until he ran out of cards and then got ran over

[slender moss]

That's what happens if you don't draw Riverchurn lol

[dense orchid]

Was he doing Esper mill?

[tepid stirrup]

Chocobo

[dense orchid]

Smh, Dimir mill is where it's at

[molten maple]

I have no idea what he was playing tbh

mono white removal spam?

I never got to see him cast anything other than get lost, wrath of god, seam rip, and one other 3 mana single target removal spell I cant recall

oh and the consul of course

most of them got blocked anyways

[charred ruin]

Man was either unlucky as hell or forgot to put a win con in his control deck

[molten maple]

yeah idk which one it is

thats a biiiiiiiiiig bird

[tepid stirrup]

Many such cases of the latter

[leaden tide]

[leaden tide]

The only control deck where that's a viable strategy is Lantern Control.

Because the win-con is crushing your opponent's will to live.

[dense orchid]

https://tenor.com/view/big-bird-angry-door-fall-gif-11404358

[tepid stirrup]

I didn't say it was good

Just that forgetting to add a wincon to a control deck is weirdly common

[molten maple]

Tbh I have been having more fun with my landfall deck

There used to be a lot of control decks around when I last played standard months ago, and that matchup is pretty unplayable

Now there really arent very many at all

Now I am just mostly steamrolling midrange decks or coin flipping vs other aggro decks

No more mono black discard or azorious control, hallelujah

Is there a reason people arent playing those decks anymore?

[turbid falcon]

I love that deck

[slender moss]

Well technically the wincon is incidental mill, but no Lantern Control game has lasted that long without the opponent going mad.

[leaden tide]

Ya know

We were all joking about getting a Prepared creature with Healing Salve,

but it turns out there's no white Prepare creatures wiht lifegain spells attached.

I mean technically there's the Swords to Plowshares one, but that doesn't really count for the purposes of a lifegain strategy.

[lucid jewel]

that makes sense since the life gain in this set is focused on golgari

[leaden tide]

Except there's not even any direct life-gain prepared spells in those colors.

There's a couple that create pests, but that's it.

Maybe the white/green college in Hexhaven will have some healing stuff?

[acoustic wedge]

I'm very interested in the Hexhaven schools ngl (though they could've picked a better name)

[leaden tide]

Hexhaven I'm fine with but the individual college names are.....well they're something.

[lucid jewel]

i get they wanna do a specific naming scheme but they are ugly

[leaden tide]

Fatehold is...fine. Not great but not actively bad.
Theorix.....they didn't even try
Stingerquill ewwwww
Konstari they threw darts at the alphabet
Vigorbloom uninspired but that is all it needs to qualify as the best one.

[molten maple]

Ok guys: question

Lets say youre doing an online vintage cube draft and pack 1 has both time walk and ancestral recall. Which one are you taking?

[lucid jewel]

Recall

You will always get worth out of recall

[leaden tide]

Yeah I'm gonna second that. The number of situations where you wouldn't want to draw three cards are vanishingly small.

[molten maple]

Can the same not be said for taking an extra turn?

When would taking an extra turn ever not be great

[tepid stirrup]

You get less card draw!

Two turns is only really good if you're sure you can end

Three cards are always good

Drawing cards is so good

Hard to overstate

[molten maple]

Indeed

Extra turns are also so good though, hard to overstate

[tepid stirrup]

IMO extra turns are easy to overstate

[plush bear]

Sometimes its just an Explore

[rare sparrow]

fwiw, arena cube stats say that time walk is the highest winrate card in the arena powered cube

[molten maple]

Yeah its far more likely to just immediately win you the game than be an explore though

[molten maple]

Really? Higher than Lotus or Sol Ring?

[rare sparrow]

yes

sol ring is around #10 or so

black lotus is 2 or 3 depending on how exactly you measure winrate

in arena cube at least, the top 5 are time walk, ajani nacatl pariah, black lotus, ancestral recall, and ocelot pride

in some order

mh3 ruining magic as usual (this is partly a joke but partly serious)

[leaden tide]

I don't think it's an understatement to say that the most powerful text a Magic card can have is "draw a card" (or some number of cards).

Card advantage does everything. It hits your next land drops. It finds you your answers. It finds you your finishers.

[tepid stirrup]

I wonder to what extent it is a result of decks being built for ancestral recall being a wincon and it being a relatively easy wincon, where card draw can kind of go in any deck to include a lot of bad ones

[lucid jewel]

im always gonna argue that extra turn might have a higher win rate but its honestly almost always a win more card

and not a win card

drawing cards is ALWAYS vallue

[leaden tide]

Exactly. An extra turn spell is great for pressing an advantage. But if you're behind, it doesn't help you get ahead much.

[rare sparrow]

well, that's also not what the data says.

if someone has a time walk in their deck on arena but doesn't see it, they win 48.4% of the time