Magic: the Gathering

[upper moon]

Oh no, layers conversation

[turbid falcon]

Layers aren't too bad

They can get really complex sure but the rules are fairly similar to the stack, but with a particular order to how things are resolved

At least that's how I think about it

[leaden tide]

Yep, it's just list of the order different (potentially conflicting) effects apply in. You don't need to memorize them by any stretch. You can just look them up when in doubt.

Unrelated: It's not perfect, but I couldn't come up with any specific characters that really fit Monica Rambeau, so I just kinda went with this abstract idea.

Might try a different name for the back side.

[lucid jewel]

so this just happened

https://i.imgur.com/SyiWZ4K.jpeg

[charred ruin]

What the hell lol

[leaden tide]

That's uh. That's a lot of. Very very large tokens

[lucid jewel]

Yeah shenangians are abound when I am playing witherbloom

[leaden tide]

She seems to be the most nuts of the new Elder Dragons by far.

[dense orchid]

I kind of want to make a superfriends deck, but not with the obvious commander of Atraxa. Any suggestions?

[slender moss]

Carth the Lion
Lae'zael/Master Chef
Commodore Guff
Leori, Sparktouched Hunter
Jodah the Unifier
Ezuri, Stalker of the Spheres

Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head

[plush bear]

i have a really fun Carth deck

[leaden tide]

Captain Sisay's a good option too

[plush bear]

Carth does really silly things

Most planeswalkers ult on turn 2 of them being out

[charred ruin]

Carth is only two colors but he's really funny

[dense orchid]

I'm kind of feeling a Lae'zel/Master Chef superfriends token deck

[slender moss]

I built that a few years ago

[dense orchid]

How'd it do?

[slender moss]

I never actually bought it but iirc it didn't have enough draw or ramp bc I was bad at deckbuilding then

But that was entirely my fault lol

[surreal stag]

Omg what a night! My buddies wife got him a custom magic card as a gift for father’s day.

This man goes “dang now I need to build a Naya Cats deck”

The rest of the pod said “hold up we got this”

https://moxfield.com/decks/fB3uUQEJ-UmqwDr9_jByhA

Of course we rule 0’d his card in the command zone and didn’t use Jetmir

We adjusted his daughters token to make her an Emblem so that nothing can ever really happen to her lol

And we said he just rolls a d6 on end step 5-6 he gains the life

yes there is a typo. We noticed on the first draft I made for TTsim and kept it becuase I’m notorious for bad spelling

[dense orchid]

Well I'm not buying this anytime soon
MILK! // Commander (Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion and Master Chef) deck list mtg // Moxfield — MTG Deck Builder https://share.google/pwVZdXJyljyCzfwc9

[leaden tide]

Awwwww. That's so sweet!

[surreal stag]

Shes my superfirends lite mono white deck

pretty fun

[surreal stag]

the deck runs pretty smooth as you can imagine, value from attacking in a Naya cats deck is easy enought when your commander doesnt draw you a card per turn. And this one does lol

[slender moss]

3-mana Nissa might be a good add

[dense orchid]

Flipwalker Nissa or creature Nissa?

[slender moss]

Oh wait you already have her lol

7-mana Nissa also good

Ascended Animist

[dense orchid]

Good choice, but I decided to cut Animist. Maybe I'll reconsider though...

[plush bear]

New Marvel card

||I love the ward lmao||

[tepid stirrup]

Ew no

||Poison counters are maybe my least favorite mechanic in the game||

[lucid jewel]

okay i like that card

[charred ruin]

Horrifying

[leaden tide]

Everyone's talking about poison counters but deathtouch typal was not on my bingo for this set.

[turbid falcon]

I think it's hilarious that's it's actually a good card

They're notorious for being complete clowns

Also I'm fairly certain we don't need to spoil this set outside of maybe the sagas

None of these cards are spoilers for any stories, they're just characters and objects and such

Also, I'm noticing a distinct lack of X-Men
$10 says one of the upcoming marvel sets is gonna be them

[leaden tide]

Considering the fact we're likely getting 4 more Marvel sets, yeah they're probably saving most of them for their own set.

Sure there's versions of Wolverine and Storm. But there's also some Spider people in this set. Unfortunately.

[wanton hazel]

you mean like 6 total? I guess Spidey and MSH are the first two, X-Men makes sense for one, maybe a Super Villains set, maybe a cosmic set or something, but I'm not sure what else would make sense?

[leaden tide]

There is a chance we're getting only two more sets.

I'm going off of the fact there's been one Infinity Stone in each Marvel set so far.

But it might have been that tiny Spider-Man wasn't originally going to have any (and this set would have two), and then they decided to change that when they pivoted to making Spider-Man (barely) draftable.

[wanton hazel]

that's fair, I wouldn't be surprised if they pull the ripcord of MSH does as poorly as Spider Man did

fulfilling their contract and in-progress sets but stopping when it's viable

[leaden tide]

I sadly doubt MSH will do as bad as Spider-Man, it's already looking substantially more sauced than that set.

[turbid falcon]

I also doubt it's gonna pull a FF or even an Avatar level performance though

[surreal stag]

yea MSH looks like its pretty juiced. im kinda meh on most of it but some stuff has be thinking about some cool ideas

[leaden tide]

Spider-Man is allegedly in their top 10 sets of all time. Though whether that's actual consumer buy rates or just distribution to retailers remains unclear.

[surreal stag]

Like a Dimir Plan deck would be cool. Copy the plans, double the tirggers, be evil

[leaden tide]

Plans are just quests by another name.

[surreal stag]

it has to be just distribution based one what we see online of shelves full of stuff

[surreal stag]

yes but they are EEVIILLL

lol

[tepid stirrup]

Presumably they can't exactly track consumer buy rates in the same way yeah?

[surreal stag]

i can do an obnoxious evil laugh when i get my little value engines going

[leaden tide]

To play devil's advocate. It's also possible that it's still selling well, and was just massively over printed.

[surreal stag]

fair

either way the content inside the product was trash

but if its your thing then its your thing all is good

[lucid jewel]

have yall seen this card yet

||https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/236c437f-ee9d-4145-a4db-b665908089cf.jpg?1780413476||

might have to put him in my bunny deck

cheap, draw when i target things just all round solid card for my deck

[rare sparrow]

there are a lot of pretty good generic value creatures like loki in the set it seems

[leaden tide]

Yeah. They also stapled Crucible of Worlds on to yet another green creature

[turbid falcon]

Get in me flubs deck

[leaden tide]

On the one hand, it's nowhere near as busted as Icetill

On the other hand, it's a whole mana cheaper

[dense orchid]

Also doesn't take GG

[surreal stag]

Yea another card for Uppies to bully lol

[leaden tide]

Random question for Destiny folks (so Kon and Jazz I guess): Are there any raid final bosses you could see having a mono-white color identity?

Because I'm looking at the list and not coming up with anything. Unless, idk, maybe the Witness? With a WUBRG rider ability?

[tepid stirrup]

Huh

I could see Vex being Azorius offhand

Crown of Sorrow feels Orzhov

[wanton hazel]

one of the LGS just posted on discord that for the second set in a row, Wizards is having printing and fulfillment delays for supplementary products such as bundles and commander decks, and so they're closing pre-orders early

[leaden tide]

I have a few that could include white in their identity, but I'm trying to come up with a list for a cycle of mono-color mythic rare raid bosses.

[wanton hazel]

seven sets was very clearly a mistake

[leaden tide]

I do think seven sets was a mistake, but also global economy/supply chains are kinds all cremed up right now.

[leaden tide]

Right now I have:
White: ???
Blue: Atheon
Black: Riven
Red: Rhulk
Green: Crota

I think the Witness would probably be the most appropriate raid boss to complete this cycle.

[tepid stirrup]

Witness does seem like a WUBRG God typal to finish that off, yeah

[leaden tide]

Oryx also has white in his identity, but I feel he can't be reduced to mono-white the same way the Witness maybe could.

[tepid stirrup]

Savathun isn't a raid boss but I can see iterations of her that might be mono-white worthy

[leaden tide]

Yeah. I'm thinking white casting cost, WUBRG ability somewhere in the text box. It's...it's a bit cliche, but I think it works for the Witness more than most characters that get that treatment.

[leaden tide]

Maybe? I have a hard time envisioning a version of Savathun that doesn't include blue in her identity.

[acoustic wedge]

I think the Vex might work best

So in this case maybe Koregos? I didn't play Desert Perpetual so idk

[tepid stirrup]

I think the Witch Queen fight (and calling her Savathun, Risen or something like that and choosing appropriate art) could work

[leaden tide]

Koregos was my thought as well. Which leads me to another complication of this set that I may or may not trying to complete at some point.

[acoustic wedge]

Oof

[leaden tide]

My original plan was, for my sanity, to limit my custom Destiny project to the Light and Dark saga

[tepid stirrup]

Yeah I know nothing about Desert Perpetual

[leaden tide]

But it turns out that the only Destiny stuff we have that's not Light and Dark saga is EoF and the Star War

[tepid stirrup]

Hm maybe Player Guardian?

It's a bigger swing since Player Guardian isn't a Raid boss but certainly the right power tier

[leaden tide]

Hmm yeah, maybe?

[acoustic wedge]

Eh, the player character feels too red for me. WUR imo.

But thats me

[tepid stirrup]

There is Templar, but again not a final boss

[acoustic wedge]

Jeskai thats the name

[leaden tide]

These all could conceivably work, but the more I think about it, the more I think the Witness is the right choice. Like, it's very much a WUBRG villain, but also it's core feels very mono white. It's a chorus of voices all forced to align with the common goal, and its endgame is to freeze the universe into a single moment to prevent suffering.

[leaden tide]

Yeah that was also my thought.

[tepid stirrup]

If you don't have a Dimir Savathun's Coccon card that gets played on the other player's side of the board and has some kind of hatch mechanic I riot

[leaden tide]

oooh riot, good mechanic for the Scorn

[leaden tide]

I think I also might want to make the Young Wolf a WUBRG creature as well, so that they could be the commander for all elements. But idk how many WUBRG creatures I want to be in this set. The Traveler also feels like it should be all colors. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

[tepid stirrup]

Traveler is hard Selesnya to me

[leaden tide]

Yeah that does feel like it's philosophical core for sure.

[tepid stirrup]

Tree of Silver Wings seems closer to WUBRG to me

But what about the Veil

[leaden tide]

https://tenor.com/view/sus-osiris-funny-gif-22838278

[leaden tide]

Sultai? Maybe??????????

[tepid stirrup]

I think you could also have a list of opposing monocolored Guardians

[leaden tide]

What would the Veil's typeline even be? Fungus Avatar?

Opposing?

[tepid stirrup]

Opposing maybe not the right word

But for each of your monocolor Raid Bosses a monocolor Guardian

[leaden tide]

Ah yeah.

I'm thinking, if I do that in the mythic slot, I'd want it to be something like, Guardians of legend. Shin Malphur, etc.

At rare, I have:
White: Big Z
Blue: Ikora
Black: ??
Red: Cayde
Green: Crow

[tepid stirrup]

Black: Eris

[acoustic wedge]

Easily Eris

[leaden tide]

I'm torn between Eris or Drifter. Both are definitely black, but neither feels mono-black entirely.

But yeah if I had to pick one, it'd probably be Eris.

[tepid stirrup]

Why not both

[leaden tide]

"MoonRat, Spooky Lovebirds"

[tepid stirrup]

There's a Drifter and Moondust, Broken Guardians in there somewhere

[leaden tide]

*Ratman and Moondust

Nah, Drifter I want to be Jund:

• Black, because selfish AF
• Red, because he practices the goblin school of engineering
• Green, because he's always hungry

[tepid stirrup]

Don't forget to have a ramen shop card

I think Destiny is easy to shove into the UB trap of dozens of legendary creatures but I also think that it can pretty handily avoid that problem

[leaden tide]

I think Destiny can fit a lot of 'virtual legendary' cards: Cards that represent a very specific thing, but don't have an actual legendary type.

Namely, I think applying this approach to a lot of the iconic-but-not-quite-most-iconic bosses would work.

[tepid stirrup]

For sure, the Aunors and Shin Malphurs of the world don't necessarily need to be Legendaries

[leaden tide]

Yeah. Several Tower vendors wouldn't need to be legendary either. Rahool, the Postmaster, etc.

[acoustic wedge]

Destination vendors too.

[tepid stirrup]

Nimbus who?

[leaden tide]

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/targeted-redaction

[tepid stirrup]

Gotta be the text for the Brother Vance card

Just "'Who?' -Osiris"

[surreal stag]

https://moxfield.com/decks/hEKx7EQjC0WotYq8vKM8yg

With only half a set my Evil Plan deck seems to function /shrug

[lucid jewel]

I want a telesto card that breaks the game constantly

[surreal stag]

kek

but yea as we get more villains and hopefully more plans ill keep tweaking

turns out shapeshifters are really good at being evil lol

[leaden tide]

Panglacial Wurm but as an equipment?

[charred ruin]

A reskin of the Spike un-card that lets you get a banned card from outside the game

That or an equipment that returns to the battlefield or your hand if it would leave the battlefield, and lets you treat a card type as another card type (like how the bomblets kept being counted as entities)

[leaden tide]

"Non-creature permanents you control are creatures in addition to their other types."
Leave the power and toughness undefined for additional rules gore

[lucid jewel]

All brilliant ideas

[slender moss]

"Create a Panglacial Wurm token in your library, then search your library for a basic nonland card, put it into your hand, and shuffle"

[lucid jewel]

I was like "panglacial wurm cant be that crazy"

Then I looked at the card

Lol thats nuts

7 notes and rules info on scryfall

[leaden tide]

Yep. Such a simple ability causes so many headaches.

[rare sparrow]

i'm sure they regret printing it

so many rules headaches for very little benefit

[turbid falcon]

Thankfully it's not very good

[surreal stag]

I mean fetch land = 9/5 what am I missing lol

[surreal stag]

Yea I read all that

Oh you have to cast it lol my bad

Nvm trash card

[dense orchid]

Worse than Colossal Dreadmaw smh

[surreal stag]

Everything is worse than Colossal Dreadmaw

https://tenor.com/view/colossal-dreadmaw-mtg-dinosaur-ixalan-gif-24464398

[dense orchid]

Give me Dreadmaw over Emrakul the flying spaghetti monster

[spare harbor]

I mean that just kills all your non creatures because undefined is defined as 0

[charred ruin]

That does sound about right for Telesto

[rare sparrow]

so one of the problems with it, rules-wise, is how it interacts with selvala

selvala's ability is a mana ability, so you can activate it while searching your library and attempting to cast panglacial wurm

similar stuff goes for milikin (which would mill a card while you are in the middle of searching your library), although that one is less problematic because it always gives you a predictable amount of mana. selvala does not

meaning you might activate selvala's ability hoping to be able to generate enough mana to cast panglacial wurm, and not actually end up with enough mana to do it

[stiff horizon]

Another genre of rules nightmare I enjoy are the few cards that do target, but do so at random, while still being considered targeting, plus a card that modifies spell costs based on what they’re targeting

Something like this only with a spell instead of a creature ability

[lucid jewel]

How do you even randomize that

[sleek valley]

He's a campaign boss rather than a raid boss, but I think Ghaul is pretty firmly mono white.

[rare sparrow]

most destiny raid bosses are pretty firmly non-white

imo

lots of black, some blue and red

classic grixis villains

[tepid stirrup]

I think a lot of them have some white

Just, monowhite is real hard

[leaden tide]

Yeah. I still think the Witness is the strongest mono-white candidate.

Lots I can do for blue, black, and red. And with the Hive there's a few that can be almost mono green (survival of the fittest and all that). But white is hard.

[leaden tide]

I currently have Ghaul down as mardu. He feels white to me for sure, but not purely white. Hmm.

[leaden tide]

I really like having the Hive in Destiny because they're villains that also have strong white and green shades to them.

The Cabal also have white and green, especially Caiatl's faction.

[leaden tide]

https://tenor.com/view/do-you-guys-have-phones-diablo-immortal-diablo-phone-no-phones-do-you-guys-not-have-phones-gif-2621236640657851871

[lucid jewel]

[lucid jewel]

I watched that live it was so cringe

[rare sparrow]

idk, savathun post-resurrection is the only one that really feels white to me (and even then, probably something like abzan). oryx definitely not. like, sure, the darkness is not inherently "black", but all the people serving it are black through their association with the witness, except those that turn on him.

[wanton hazel]

funny story, I used to raid in WoW with a guy who was a business owner who had some legit Blizzard connections, and just before that presentation, he had apparently been shown some Diablo 4 footage, and was really excited because he thought they were going to announce that game... And I think I said something about how it's probably some mobile slop, and he was super confident. And it was just, welp

[leaden tide]

Oryx feels abzan to me for these reasons:

• White: He is the founder and figurehead of a very ritualistic religion with a highly regimented and enforced structure. A lot like Elesh Norn this way.
• Green: His weakest color, but the Sword Logic is in a large part green, as survival of the fittest is a very green concept. He is also very willing and accepting of fate, as seen in Heresey when an errant echo of him doesn't want to continue.
• Black: The Hive are a culture built on necromancy and death, and are black to the extreme in this regard. Oryx is no exception to this.

[leaden tide]

Oop. Well that gives you something to hold over his head forever

[tepid stirrup]

Yeah I think there's a lens to view the Sword Logic through where it turns up white, despite the Hive's sorcerous vibe, and the Vex as a general rule feel very Azorius to me

Likewise, I think there's a lot of lenses through which the Traveler and the Guardians in particular are very Black

(Devotion, Bravery, Sacrifice, Death)

The whole Guardian loop of dying repeatedly and rezzing has a bit of a Golgari vibe to it sometimes

[tepid stirrup]

(Well, necromancy is incompatible with the Sword Logic)

[tepid stirrup]

Oh yeah, Ghaul existed

[leaden tide]

Yeah fair. More the...necrotic rituals. And ways to cheat death (which Oryx was chill with, totally different from necromancy folks!)

[tepid stirrup]

Return from Exile

Not the same as playing from the graveyard

Even Magic differentiates between the two

Honestly one or more of the Hive gods should have that

"If this creature would be put in the graveyard, put it in exile instead"

[leaden tide]

Yeah if I make custom versions of them, they'll have some way of cheating death like that.

[tepid stirrup]

Maybe make it more expensive each time like a Commander

[leaden tide]

And yet is still like the third-most memorable Cabal character.

[leaden tide]

just make them go to the command zone even if you're not playing commander

Actually wait

That's exactly the kind of rules redefinition that Oryx would actually do

[lucid jewel]

[leaden tide]

Yep. The Vex are Azorius with a little bit of black (mostly the Sol Divisive). Very very good example of villains who are not centered on black.

[rare sparrow]

what about the vex feels white to you? i don't see their structure as having anything to do with white ideas, it's just a hive mind, which feels very blue to me

i'd probably think of them more as mono-blue, with maybe the sol divisive being blue black

[tepid stirrup]

Their obsession with time, causality, and order

Sol Divisive is also expressly about worship

[rare sparrow]

time magic is basically always depicted as blue

[tepid stirrup]

Blue-white, often

A lot less often in other blue pairings

[rare sparrow]

ehh, that's because teferi is blue white and most time magic is associated with teferi, who is very obviously white, but for reasons that don't really relate to the magic he uses

[turbid falcon]

Me: designs an x spell deck that's deliberately slower and less optimized than my usual builds
Also my deck: absolutely steam rolls the lower power level table I designed it for

[rare sparrow]

i feel like most of the x-spell commanders can get out of hand very easily

[turbid falcon]

I mean it's not like I cast a lot of spells
Just, really big hydras with trample seemed to just be more than anyone could handle lmao

[rare sparrow]

what commander are you playing?

[turbid falcon]

Magus Lucea Kane

[rare sparrow]

yeah, she can get out of hand very quickly

i've never played her myself, but played against her enough to try to kill her on sight

[turbid falcon]

Yeah I think that was the problem
I only got my board bounced, not truly removed, so nothing of mine got removed, most of which would have stopped me from killing them with giant creatures

[tepid stirrup]

Vex are also big into Exile, which seems pretty white to me

[turbid falcon]

In the end, I can control my own deck build but if they don't run removal there's not much I can do to slow down my deck

[tepid stirrup]

(Removing half the fireteam that went into VoG, what they did to Saint)

[turbid falcon]

At least not beyond what I've done already

In my normal playgroup I would have been nuked into oblivion lmao

[rare sparrow]

i mean yeah, that's the "problem" with magus lucea kane. if she untaps and casts even one x-spell creature, it very quickly goes from 1 kill-on-sight creature to 3 being on the board at the same time

and then everyone is basically depending on board wipes

which i think people who don't play a lot of spot removal are also not playing a lot of

[turbid falcon]

And I also had Minamo, so make that 4 at once

[rare sparrow]

lol, yeah, i think i'd be about ready to concede after seeing that

pretty hard to get back into the game unless you board wipe in the next turn or two

[turbid falcon]

Deck building thought: hm the endstone might work to create an explosive final turn
Reality of the endstone: I'm stuck at 20 life and my hand is now 7 lands I can't play

I mean sure it's worth it if I manage to dump out win conditions before I brick into lands
But otherwise it was rather anticlimactic

This is why we test before we make permanent changes
I'm messing with the 6+ MV artifact package for my Toph deck
But back to the drawing board on that one. Maybe The Ten Rings, but... Eh. Guess I'll test it

[surreal stag]

Description of your nsfw tapes

[surreal stag]

My inner child won’t apologize but I will lol

[rare sparrow]

i play endstone in my artifact deck and never been disappointed when i cast it

[leaden tide]

Their end goal and nature of imposing a rigid order onto the universe as they machinoform it one bit at a time.

That to me is a very white trait.

[leaden tide]

You seem to have this problem with X-spells decks.

[lucid jewel]

not even just white, that feels very asorious

thats the colour combo of control and order

[leaden tide]

I still haven't found a deck where it feels like it really wants the Endstone. So I need to figure that out at some point.

Maybe my Bre Stoutarm deck? She might like the lifegain as it gets into the endgame.

But also that'd conflict with the deck's other wincons like Storm Herd and Felidaire Sovreign.

[dense orchid]

I think it could work really well in a black pain deck or a landfall deck

[surreal stag]

The stupid vivi stompy deck is 1-0. Only because my friend didn’t knock me out of the game with commander damage 4 turns previous

[turbid falcon]

What in the world
An arcane spell in 2026

(this is the secret lair art, but from what I understand this card is in the main set)

Ok, but why

Are there gonna be more cards that care about arcane?

[crisp prairie]

Kamigawa is back 🥳

It was my second ever block and my first ever cards of my own. Always nostalgic for it.

[slender moss]

Hey, Arcane is a cool mechanic

[turbid falcon]

Its kind of meh imo
The only thing that really cares about arcane is splice onto arcane

So unless they're doing more support for the subtype in this set I'm mostly just confused as to why its on this card

[slender moss]

Splice is a cool mechanic!

It isn't bad as just a tag that some things care about i.e. City's Blessing, but splice existing makes it much cooler

[turbid falcon]

A cool, but heavily underrepresented mechanic from a single set

And I have no idea how they'd fit it into this one

I feel like at the least Scarlet witch would have referenced it if it was planned to be a major mechanic in this set

and again, if it isn't, why include it at all

[slender moss]

Even if it's just there as a random throwback, it signals that they intend to print more in the future. It can also be a way of gaguing player engagement

[turbid falcon]

Well in that case my response is commit to the bit WotC
If you're gonna do arcane, do it properly

[slender moss]

What if The Unspeakable was Marvel canon

[leaden tide]

Hmm I'm wondering if this is a seed for the (presumably forthcoming) arcane Marvel set.