Free Pizza: Visions of the Future

This was a LOT of fun. I hit my Free Pizza this month on the back of two decks, which I am enjoying quite a bit of. I hope you find some inspiration in these, because I've had a great time playing them.

While this says Auto-Air Walker, I just didn't change the name after messing around with it. 

This deck wants to use the destroy package to ideally trigger Air Walker into Morgan Le Fay. Moira X isn't necessary but IS a but of fun in this deck, potentially setting up multiple Morgan triggers. But even if Morgan isn't used, there's a nice destroy backup: The Thing First Steps and Lady Dethstroke can flip lanes, which can't be overlooked.

I didn't build this entirely from scratch; Uncle Ben is a character I added after seeing someone with a list online, for example. But it's been pretty neat to play with and it definitely pushed me up in the ranks. 

This next deck I'm really proud of: 

I started off using Viv Vision as a card in a move deck, and she was terrible. But once I shifted the deck to a Sebastian Shaw- boost deck it came alive. Frankie Raye Nova and Nakia are flex slots: Frankie is a fun card to pair with Sasquatch, and Nakia really could be something better. Red Guardian is probably a better choice but all in all; this is fun! 

Just Some Thoughts

 After being told that I am missing the point of the Spider-Man set, because while it seems half-baked to me: ‘what does half-baked feel like to casual players’ and I'm 'overestimating what people are looking for out of Magic. It's not like MtG is such a complicated game', I have a few thoughts.

First; a half baked set is one that gives players a poor play experience, especially when combined with the larger Magic ecosystem. If you get into Magic because Spider-Man is your favorite hero and you don’t feel like it represents things well (and I think the heroic cards in particular feel very samey), plus your play experience sucks, then how is that good for the game? Because I think any player is looking for a good time: it is precisely the reason Commander is popular as a format. 

Because Commander is not a great format, but it IS a great time with friends. It's easy to miss this but my experience has lead me to that conclusion: the presence of friends makes up for the shortcomings of Commander as a format. 

That aside: if someone plays the Spider-Man set and then gets trounced by someone playing the Final Fantasy set, how is that going to feel? 

Second; Magic is the most complicated game and that's just the fact. Nothing against other complicated games but saying that Magic isn't complicated is incredibly dismissive, especially when you're trying to teach new players the game. This shit is hard. 

Third; the new draft format that they are doing is probably being pitched as a way to sell those Spider-Man packs. That is: Hey, this is specifically for Spider-Man but it's also official so if you want to play it with other sets, that's fine. I used to think it was a way to cover up the weakness of having a set made of only 188 cards-and my understanding is that 88 of those were fast tracked

However, in the same thread where I was told that I was missing the point of the set, I saw game store employees talking up the new format, because you only need 4 players to get a draft to fire. That's really good for game stores, and reduces the burden on people who want to play at home.

And I have to admit; it is a LOT easier getting four people together than eight, something that is good for players and for stores where people play! But now I think there’s something else going on.

Conjecture: I think this is a way for WotC to float doing new sets every month. If they are releasing six sets for Standard this year and five of those have close to 300 cards per set, how difficult is it halve the size of each set and say “new sets every month! New draft format means you won’t ever get bored, and the format can’t ever get stale because it’s just 30 days for new cards!”

Now, on the one hand; formats like draft becoming more accessible is a really good thing. Drafts sell packs and packs keep the game going. 

On the other hand; There. Is. Too. Much. Goddamn. Product.

Nothing gets a chance to be explored, because we’re already on to the next set—and the next set is already being hyped before the current one is out! Where do we actually get a chance to play games instead of be on the hype train?

I dunno. I’m probably just overthinking it, because that is what I tend to do. But it wouldn’t shock me, because I feel like WotC-or more likely Hasbro-has taken the position of milking the customers for as much money as possible. 

Horror Revisited

I really dug this article on Kamigawa's evocation of the violence of war, in contrast to the high fantasy violence we are typically presented with. 

Kamigawa was a beloved set because of its incredible evocation of story, lore and art. I am reminded that Magic sets, as with movies, are comprised of many moving parts and a whole lot of people dedicate their time and effort to getting details right. Efforts that go all but unnoticed when they go right, they become so glaring when they are wrong.  

I'm glad they went back to the plane to get the gameplay right.

Late To The Party; Doom: The Dark Ages

 This was the moment when I knew Doom was jumping the shark:

Forgive the potato quality of the picture: the game wouldn't let me just take a pic of it. 

There's a lot of good in Doom: The Dark Ages. I found getting into the rhythm of the game to be easier than in Doom Eternal, and the jumping sections don't require you to do something precise or else die, which is good. 

Doomguy is a lumbering unit, every time he lands from a jump there's a "thoom" and ripple in the ground. It feels right. The combat sections even when they become a colorful wasteland of insanity are still engaging and, if you're putting some thought into your weapons and how they interact, feel good to fight through.

The map is well laid out too: Always offering enough detail to show you where to go, but not so much that you cannot figure out how to get there. They want you to find the hidden items, which feels good. 

There's also sections of the game where you play in a giant mech and these are...fine. They aren't complex, and you become a titan of destruction, wrecking buildings and giant demons with your metal fists. I can't say that they are incredibly fun but they do provide a nice break between other segments of the game and they feel correct.

That is; you are still Doomguy and you exist to fuck things up. 

The dragon, however...

As with everything in The Dark Ages, the dragon is metal. And by that, I mean the aesthetic and vibe. 

However, flying the dragon is not metal. I am not playing Doom to fly a dragon. I am playing Doom to take a chainsaw to demons. The dragon does metal things, like breathing fire down the neck of a giant demon, but the player doesn't do them.

And this is where we get into padding. The Doom reboot of 2016 was about as perfectly distilled as you could ask for. What did you do? You murdered every demon in the room until there weren't none. If you felt like it, cool; get some dollies. 

Now...you  have to drive a mech and a dragon. And I'm not saying that they don't have moments, but they do take me out of the primary gameplay look and I'm not sure what the upside is for the dragon elements. 

Still, all in all I enjoyed the game and had a good time. 

Insiders

 With the new Spider-Man set coming out I could not be less excited. I'll pick through it to see if there's anything that sparks my interest but I have no intention of playing at the pre-release or buying packs. 

And the question came up from MaRo himself "is there anything that can happen with the Universes Beyond product where you accept it's had a positive effect on Magic as a whole?"

The answer to that is: I can hold two thoughts at once. 

The sales of Universes Beyond apparently demonstrate more people are getting into the game. I say "apparently" because I've never seen anyone cite numbers-either for or against. They certainly are selling. Hasbro posts profits and the signs point to Magic being an important brand. That is a net good, if you love the game. 

Which doesn't change the fact that the product is also predatory because it's priced higher than regular product, creates a second reserve list, where if people don't buy into product they don't want right now because of the theme (not the mechanics), then they run the risk of never being able to see that product again, and that the Universes Beyond sets have increased the flow of Magic cards to a deluge and that feels exhausting.

Nevertheless, I would still like a Universes Within set-something like the Time Spiral or Innistrad Remastered sets. Collected editions of UB sets but printed as Magic cards in-universe. This would go a long way towards mitigating the ire that players like me have towards these outsider sets, because it would show a willingness to bring the game back to the people who have invested so much into it, or just don't want Spider-Man in their Black Lotus. 

The idea.

It started as these things often do: someone else trying something interesting with Tifa Lockheart.

Now I am less thrilled with the three color manabase here; Steppe Lynx and Akoum Hellhound are relevant one drops but I think we all know that they don't get the job done. Maybe I'm just bad at committing to the idea but I really don't think those cards are good enough, so instead I went with this.

4 Tifa Lockhart
2 Voice of Victory
3 Grand Abolisher
3 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Elvish Reclaimer

4 Crop Rotation
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Royal Treatment
3 Berserk

6 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Temple Garden
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Sejiri Steppe
2 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Cabaretti Courtyard

3 Wrenn and Realmbreaker

4 Scale Up

This was my first take on the deck and I don't think it's bad! There's some powerful effects in there, but I kept finding that I wasn't getting as many landfall triggers as I would like when I goldfished it.

What, I kept thinking, is a way to get multiple lands into play? Then it hit me: Veteran Explorer. And there's already a shell for that card with Cabal Therapy! So: 

4 Tifa Lockhart
3 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
2 Elvish Reclaimer
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Voice of Victory

4 Crop Rotation
4 Royal Treatment
3 Berserk
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Infernal Grasp

7 Forest
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Godless Shrine
2 Plains
1 Underground Mortuary

4 Scale Up
4 Cabal Therapy

Now we're talking. I don't know if this is good, but it's a neat place to start. Yes, it's still a 3 color deck, but I think that Black offers me a lot more power than Red does, and as it turns out, I already had a G/B deck that I wasn't super thrilled with and could retire. 

So let's see where this goes!

Keeper of the Gate

I recently learned how to play Love Letter, which is a delightful little game. Thematically it is about trying to get a letter to the princess to woo her-and intercepting the letters of your rivals. 

Now, Love Letter has a LOT of reskins-basically different riffs on the same idea. While I was being taught the game, this subject came up and it was said, with no small amount of derision, 

"There's a dragon one, Batman themed one-"

I kinda shrugged it off. "I mean,dragons?"

"Sure, sure, but nobody needs a Batman themed Love Letter."

And this bothered me but I couldn't figure out why--and today I finally did.

If Batman gets someone playing a game, why is that a problem? If the goal is, say, to get a message to Batman to help him prevent the diabolical schemes of Bane, while diverting messages that would take Batman off the case...then how is that bad?

Especially since thematically, it is a game that involves no violence itself-it's all about cunning and wit. 

The derision was especially jarring coming from friends who actively seek inclusion. I think that was one of the reasons it threw me. We should have as many ways to get people to play as they might like! 

Nooooooooooooooooow.....I can hear people already starting to wonder about this in regards to my feelings about Universes Beyond sets. 

So I want to be clear about this: I am glad that sets that show off Warhammer 40k, Dr. Who, Spider-Man, Final Fantasy, etc. bring new people into Magic. I love this game-and sharing things you love is one of the best things you can do. 

The issue between Love Letter's reskins and Magic's sets is that Magic sets become integrated into the game. Love Letter allows you to pick the flavors of the game you want. If the Batman version of Love Letter bothers you, you can ignore it and your experience doesn't change.

Magic is a stew, and it doesn't matter if the flavors don't go together anymore, you're stuck with everything that's thrown in there. The stew can't be unsalted, can't be reflavored. You've concocted a permanent change, and now instead of being able to pick the jalepenos off my pizza, I just have to swallow it. 

Maybe that's part of the price to pay, to bring more people in. If that's the case then...well, in the spirit of being welcoming, I suppose it's worth paying. But I do wish that the issues that players like me have with this introduction of flavors we do not like, didn't seem so easy to dismiss. 

Because UB isn't about making a better game of Magic, it is about making a more profitable one. 

Sometimes that reality is a little hard to take. 

State of Design 2025

You can check that out here. Come on back and I'll tell you my thoughts.

First, under the main Lessons "We need to be better at supporting our themes downstream of our designs"

I mean...what's new is old? This comment could've come right after the debacle of Mirrodin/Kamigawa. It even did, as I recall-because they started implementing ways to bridge the sets to they would interact better. It even could have come after Urza's Saga/Mercadian Masques! That's nearly thirty years ago.

However, I don't want to be condescending here; Magic design is one that is constantly changing and it can be extremely difficult to integrate everything into every set every time. They have done some great things with the Limited environments, and they're aware of the complexity going into sets. These are good things!

That said; how often do you need to learn that lesson, my dudes? 

The lessons from Bloomburrow feel...forced. As if they were searching for problems. That is a good thing, I think. When player complaints are "Not the right mix of animals" and not "this play pattern sucked" you're doing something right.

The "on rails" critique is one that I feel could be given to any typal Magic set; focusing on creature types inherently puts a set on rails. So while it isn't an inaccurate criticism, it's not very reasonable. 

The assessment of Duskmorn seems pretty good. I was VERY opposed to the mundane items in that set. And I'm really happy to say that Duskmorn is a cool set that is absolutely worth playing! I'm glad that this is  the big takeaway because I had a lot to say that was negative about the artistic choices. 

Similarly, the Foundations review highlights its strengths as a core set, and I feel like the lessons once again are solutions looking for problems. However, the strain on Foundations may start to show in two more years, when the set is still legal and players are potentially exhausted by it.

Now...Aetherdrift we're going to talk about. I realize that I may be in the minority because vehicles didn't really do it for me, but...if vehicles were exiting to players then why didn't the set hit bigger? So I already disagree with the first highlight, and while we found Start Your Engines to be better than expected, Aetherdrift just did not capture that same sense of fun that I and friends of mine had in the other Limited environments we played. 

Maybe that's just me--because the lessons all hit their marks--and suggests they did something wrong here. If the set is about racing and players end up caring about the locations visited and not the race, that's a mistake. AND this directly contradicts the notion that players enjoyed a set revolving around Vehicles-they may have been hyped for the idea, but the execution not so much.

However, the takeaways for the final lesson I have to support. Magic should try new things, and that means they don't always work. But I support the attempt--I just find some of the explanations to be suspect. 

Dragonstorm's lessons are particularly interesting to me because in all three cases, it's suggested that there may not be a good solution to them. My takeaway is that sometimes you just have to live with the inelegance of certain things. That's hard--but it's also necessary. 

I'm not going to talk about the Final Fantasy set, because I just don't care about Universes Beyond, with one exception:

Money clearly talks, and it says there's going to be more UB sets, and fuck y'all who have critiques about it. 

Is Cube The Best?

I honestly have no idea if Cube is the best format.

But what I really like about this story from Rhystic Studies is that the Cube-to me at least-isn't the thing at all.

The people are the thing-the way they take a creation and mix it up to make it their own, to give an experience that just cannot be replicated anywhere else.

Conquest Database

Whoohoo! There's a new database for all the Conquest cards to help with deckbuilding. It's a little shaggy but it DOES get the job done!

Thanks to everyone who built this incredibly helpful tool.

Free Pizza: Fantastic Four season

 I got there with this:

I have to admit, I had a lot of fun working the last few ranks with this deck. It offered me the consistency of reliable powerhouses like Collector and Dinosaur, with some random bonuses from the Shield package. 

But...I am starting to wonder what the future of Snap is. The playerbase has had a lot more to complain about lately, than celebrate. The squeeze for money seems to be in, instead of building an exceptional experience for people that makes some of the money instead of a miserable grind that tries to make all of the money.

I haven't quit--the new season has started and I really like what Galactus: First Steps adds to the game-anytime they make "lanes matter" cards like Iron Patriot, I feel like there's a good strategic element being brought to the game. 

But...the enthusiasm for play has started to wane and it's a bummer. 

Pricing

Universes Beyond is...introducing some interesting things to the game. While I've decided to mostly ignore any of those sets- beyond individual cards that I find interesting- players can't ignore the impact. 

The latest interesting weight that UB is putting on the game comes in the form of prices, something that I've found disturbing myself. It feels like price gouging to charge more for Final Fantasy sets; the cards and effort are exactly the same, right?

Well...maybe. 

I can't help but feel concerned about the direction of the game. More expensive, less thematic, and clearly prioritizing style over substance. Edge of Eternities had better gameplay than I thought! But how long before rot creeps in?

It's a hard thing to think about, for a game I've put so much time into. I have less angst about leaving Marvel Snap behind (where enshittification is also setting in) because there's less community there. 

I suppose we shall see. 

Edge of Eternities Pre-Release (1-2)

Thank you to Red Castle Games for hosting a wonderful event!

Rebecca decided to go for a G/W +1 counters build, and I was playing a B/R build with a lot of removal. Here's the breakdown. 

Rd 1 vs Justin and Donovan.

Unfortunately, our opponents were manascrewed. Justin had a Forest and a Swarmyard in play, Donovan was able to cast Susurian Voidborn and an Interceptor Merchan, but Rebecca and I played things out on curve and with haste. This wrapped the game up swiftly-she had an army of 1/1s and I had a Nova Hellkite.

Rd 2 vs Ben and Michael

We had a solid early start but they responded with a Pinnacle Starcage and it wiped our board. This stalled us long enough for an Elegy Acolyte to arrive and make robots. We were able to deal with the Acolyte in a comical set of plays using Banishing Light, which they responded to by using a Banishing of their own to bring it back, then Rebecca using a Shattered Wings to bring our Banishing back, which they eventually responded to with a second Banishing Light! I mean, what are ya gonna do?

Eventually they were overwhelming us, even casting a Famished Worldsire for 18 power and we had a lot of lands but not much else to do. Sadly I never drew a removal spell and we just couldn't quite keep up.

Rd 3 vs Malik and Kirk

A drag out battle this time, we took out a lot of creatures, fighting through a Tezzeret emblem. 

I failed to do some math, and at a critical point we decided to use Mutinous Massacre over Zero Point Ballad. While we were able to attack for 11 and take out their board, they had more than enough mana to recover from it.  That left us unable to do much-even with an active Susurian Dirgecraft. Eventually a warped Weftstalker Ardent was able to do us 4 damage, getting us to one life, and now Zero Point Ballad couldn’t wipe the board again.

I stared at the board state for about two minutes to make sure we weren't overlooking anything, but they had us. Great game though!

So...what does this all mean?

First thing's first: I am happy to say that I had a lot more fun than I anticipated, given the set review. The Warp ability did more groundwork than I thought to keep the early game flowing. 

We both felt like we had options and plays to make; Rebecca was flooded in two games and I was mana starved in one as well--this kind of RNG didn't impact our feelings. Sometimes Magic is like that--when we could make plays those plays felt relevant!

Which is a great place to find myself, after being truly concerned this would be a repeat of Aetherdrift's more blah experience. 

Set Review; Edge of Eternities

OK, here we go with the usual official link and the readable one. (Although I feel like the readable one is getting a little more cluttered now). Let's get to it.

Mechanically this set seems to want to go s l o w. That's what I get when I see Station-this is an iteration on Crew which takes longer but leaves the object in question with the abilities permanently; becoming a creature if it's a Spacecraft, gaining an extra ability if it's a planet.

Since the costs for Station activation swing pretty widely, there's two considerations: first, is the permanent worth playing to begin with? Second: if the Station cost is fulfilled, does that matter?

My feeling is that because this is a Limited mechanic we are talking about, the answer is at best, 'maybe'. WotC has gotten pretty good at developing Limited formats, and it does seem like even in colors like White and Red who often get the good small creatures, the 2/2s for 2 just aren't there. Which suggests there will be time to achieve the Stationing. 

But will players enjoy going that slowly? I know that the Aetherdrift format was just not for me and Crew played a big part of how that felt. 

However, some of the speed may be mitigated by the Warp mechanic, which might as well have a big sign on it saying "I'm here to make Station playable". 

Again: there aren't many creatures that have a value of Warp being 2 at common (which is where you will find the enablers for a strategy) -I count 3- which again, suggests a more deliberately paced game.

That said; looking at Warp as a "sorcery with benefits" is probably the best thing and I think it's fairly useful!

Is it enough to make Station worthwhile, though? I'm very dubious. Maybe just play good Magic instead? 

Void is a nice take on Revolt, a mechanic that is just fine and lander tokens are this set's mana fixing-which because they cost an additional 2 beyond whatever you just paid for, suggests again: Slow set. I wish the cost had been 1 because this seems expensive for what it does.

Let's get to the colors!

White
Emergency Eject might be one of the best spells of it's type in awhile. I get to destroy your best permanent AND you have to pay 2 mana to get a land? 

Hell yeah. 

There's some useful cards (Starfield Shepherd) and the traditional "I will cost $30+" tokens card (Exalted Sunborn. Note; I'm not mad that these exist I just wish that they didn't cost an insane amount of money every time.) but not a lot that interests me.

Blue
I do appreciate how innovative they are getting with Blue removal--Desculpting Blast (a very bad name) has all kinds of versatility to it, from taking away their best attacker, especially if it's Stationed, to saving one of your creatures and replacing it with a flier. 

I also dig the flavor of Tractor Beam. Good stuff there. 

Black
Here's a great example of my concerns about Station: Entropic Battlecruiser. That is a 4 mana permanent that I have to tap another creature to turn on. That other creature represents an investment of mana from 1-X, so turning it on is cheap but the larger cost of creating a non-attacking or defending creature is hidden and that isn't cheap. 

Now obviously this is just one example and there are plenty of Station permanents that do something when they arrive. But Entropic Battlecruiser is a rare, and as such is meant to be a marquee card, one that shows off the mechanic that WotC is doing!  And it does so but maybe not they way we're hoping.

One card I do like is Timeline Culler. It's not incredibly strong but it is recurring damage and my experience is that this quality is good. 

Red
Continuing my concerns from Entropic Battlecruiser; Debris Field Crusher. How should we feel about a 5 mana sorcery that does only 3 damage to any target and becomes useful with an 8 power investment? 

I like the flavor of Cut Propulsion, and I think Memorial Team Leader is a great example of the Warp mechanic as Sorcery With Benefits that I was talking about earlier. Weapons Manufacturing looks like a cool build around card. It may not be the best thing (spoiler; it isn't) but it seems like fun!

Green
I am almost always excited about cards like Frenzied Baloth, because they do one thing pretty well; get around countermagic. Anytime I see that quality, I think there's a shot for it in older formats like Modern or Legacy. 

One other interesting thing is that Green is the only color to have Warp on non-creature permanents. Red offers you a creature that can give artifacts you control Warp too but it's a unique implementation of the mechanic that is restricted to this color.

But I don't see a lot of exciting stuff here, aside from that. 

Multi
There's a lot of nice payoffs for the underlying themes of the set; Artifacts, things leaving play, +1 counters. and so forth. One card I'm really excited about is Singularity Rapture, but this is mostly because I have a Szadek, Lord of Secrets commander deck.

Colorless/Artifact
C'mon; Thrumming Hivepool and no Slivers in the set??

There's definitely some big swings here-from Tezzeret to The Dominion Bracelet they do some splashy things....but why aren't they interesting?. Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnaught is a great example. 100 damage to something! AWESOME!

Wait. Why do I need to do that if I am attacking for 20 in the air to begin with? And I need 20 counters on it to get there? 

Land
These...are meh. Sure, the effects look awesome if they are active, but as with many things in Magic, once effects like Evendo or Uthros are available to players--shouldn't they just have attacked for 12 instead? 

It's win more. 

Which...really starts to get at how I'm feeling about Edge of Eternities at large. This set feels really safe. That isn't inherently bad--my friend Noah pointed out that you don't want every set to break eternal formats. And that is true. I've lived through it and the game was either chaotic as hell or "We know the Best Deck and will play nothing else". 

Neither of those are good places to be in. 

However, this set feels dull. I hope it isn't! I hope I'm wrong about the gameplay being slow and not very dynamic. But there are echoes of Aetherdrift, a set that was supposed to be about racing and speed and instead felt like a drag. 

Space travel is an incredibly dynamic notion, rich with storytelling ideas and possibilities!

And in Edge of Eternities I instead see the mundane. 

Commander
There's handful of interesting cards here-for me the best is Patrolling Peacemaker. Getting to do things in response to actions your opponents must take? I'm in.

Uthros Research Craft, Planetary Annihilation, Exploration Broodship, Surge Conductor and the dual lands round out the other cards I'm interested in.

The reprints look fine-nothing amazing but I ain't mad. 

New Ground

I'm rethinking Shallow Ground. Instead of an Armageddon deck with a creature package, I want to try and make a creature deck with an Armageddon package. 

Ramp a planeswalkers out that gives me creatures every turn, or a Titania, then Armageddon and begin the grind. Make the mana generators a little less vulnerable and see how that works.

But, after another game with Noah where my loss was entirely contingent on the destruction of a Quirion Elf, Noah said, but what about the hexproof creature? 

So we come to this:

2 Talisman of Unity

3 Terravore
2 Watchwolf
3 Mother of Runes
4 Burrowguard Mentor
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
3 Titania, Protector of Argoth
4 Sylvan Caryatid

4 Swords to Plowshares

7 Forest
1 Havenwood Battleground
4 Windswept Heath
2 Flagstones of Trokair
7 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy

2 Garruk Relentless
2 Archangel Elspeth

4 Armageddon
1 Split Up

I've taken a look at other mana generators: Brugenhagen, Twitching Doll, and Tender Wildguide all look interesting!

But only Sylvan Caryatid has hexproof. Making my mana generation hard to stop will help me survive the early game. 

Because I did get a later game in that got out a Garruk and Elspeth, and started to show the proof of concept; making a bunch of creatures for free works! Armageddon in the face of that can lock an opponent out---if I still have mana. 

So. Here it is. I think it's solid-a B tier deck but a good one.

Shallow Revisions

 The next run of changes were...interesting. 

3 Quirion Elves
3 Terravore
2 Watchwolf
3 Mother of Runes
4 Burrowguard Mentor
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Titania, Protector of Argoth
3 Werebear

4 Swords to Plowshares

8 Forest
1 Havenwood Battleground
4 Windswept Heath
2 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy

2 Garruk Relentless
3 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger

4 Armageddon
1 Split Up

I know, I know. Anyone looking at this should be thinking, wait, Vivien?? And to that I say: Nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

The idea I had was to try and use Garruk Relentless to generate value that I don't have to sink mana into, and Brimaz, King of Oreskos to do the same, contributing to the threat count and making Burrowguard Mentor a problem, possibly on the level of Terravore. 

The issue with the mana ramp in Shallow Ground is that the creatures are VERY vulnerable to removal. I lost a game to Noah because he hit my Quirion Elf with a Lightning Bolt in response to my Armageddon. 

I failed to draw land, and my Swords to Plowshares sat dead, while he used his Fable of the Mirror Breaker goblin to make treasure tokens and stay right in the game. 

So I've started to rethink the deck, just a little. 

First, the Titanias are going back in--and I'm adding one. Here's my thinking: Armageddon isn't enough.

I've cast that card in multiple games now and I haven't won as a result of that. 

Think about that for a second, when considering Magic's history. Armageddon used to just be GAME OVER in big red letters and now decks shrug it off. 

But what is more challenging to shrug off is an army of 5/3s that come in as a result of a Titania. So let's see how that does.

Dig In

OK, let's get at it! The first few games I played didn't go badly--but the cards I suspected that didn't do much, didn't do much. After some poking around, I made these changes to the deck:

2 Talisman of Unity

3 Quirion Elves
3 Terravore
3 Werebear
3 Watchwolf
1 Soltari Champion
3 Mother of Runes
4 Burrowguard Mentor
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Ram Through

8 Forest
1 Havenwood Battleground
4 Windswept Heath
2 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy

2 Garruk Relentless

4 Armageddon

And then I took it up against Noah's goblins deck. In game one I got totally overrun and in game two, I got the Armageddon off, leaving Noah with 2 Aether Vials and a Goblin Lackey. I had a Terravore on the table AND a Plains and Swords to Plowshares in hand.

And then he puked a Muxus onto the table and killed me. 

Now. That feels discouraging. If there's a sign to tell me that the power level here just isn't up to Legacy standard, that matchup was it. 

And it does bring up the real problem with Armageddon as a card; it's not useful in multiples, but if you want to use that effect you have to run four copies. That means that I've had games where it's a dead card in my hand and that is never something you want. 

It also demonstrated the problem Ram Through has as removal. Swords to Plowshares works no matter what my board state is-Ram Through only is good if I have a) a creature on the table and b) one big enough to take out something. A Quirion Ranger is not very much help against a Delver of Secrets that has flipped. 

So there's still some work to do--and I need to do a slightly better job of evaluating cards.

Formats

With the latest Legacy B&R update being...bad and the latest Standard update being very proactive, I thought this video on what makes for a good format might be worth viewing. 

Break

I am in need of a break and I want to avoid burnout-on writing, on gaming, just in general. 

So I'm going to take a week off, get some games in and not worry about the writing so much. 

Cheers!

Shallow Ground

I've been holding off on this one, but it's time. I named this after the Corrosion of Conformity song, just to give y'all a sense of how long ago I first started on this deck.

2 Talisman of Unity

3 Quirion Elves
3 Terravore
3 Werebear
3 Watchwolf
3 Soltari Champion
3 Mother of Runes
2 Titania, Protector of Argoth

2 Seal of Cleansing

3 Wild Might
4 Swords to Plowshares

8 Forest
1 Havenwood Battleground
4 Windswept Heath
2 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy

4 Armageddon
2 Catastrophe

Why have I been resisting playing this deck? 

First, Magic has largely moved on. Armageddon was once a terrible spell to witness. Now, it barely registers. Mana has gotten a lot better since Armageddon's heyday, the game has sped up significantly and losing all your lands doesn't sting like it once did.. 

Second, Armageddon creates unfun game states. That's just a fact and it's why WorC hasn't printed a Standard legal version of this card in literal decades. 

But now; now I'm wondering if this should still exist--and if it does, should it just be combined with Xnoybis. 

More is Too Much

 This season of Marvel Snap has been a mess. 

First; every since the Golden Gauntlet 2 (which was entertaining as HELL to watch the finals of), there's been a mild Thanos/Arishem/Agamotto meta, where you throw ALL THE CARDS in your deck, which I haven't been able to beat even with cards like Cassandra Nova and Darkhawk.

When the tech cards no longer keep the meta in check, you have a problem.

What's created more outrage among the community though has been the tweaks to the High Voltage. 

Effectively; the mode does three things:

First, it adds random "charged" cards to your deck, making every deck an Arishem one.

Second, it offers a random "overdrive" ability which triggers if enough charged cards are played. Sometimes it's beneficial, as when you can earn double credits for a win, but it also includes "Cull all the weakest cards" or "transform all the charged cards" and you just have NO idea what you're going to get. 

And third, the visual effects of all these things-charged cards, the overdrive trigger-crates this visual mess that just makes the whole board difficult to track.

Making things worse by far are two other things-cards they didn't ban before the mode started, then had to fix 24 hours later (which, kudos here but a card like Gorgon should NEVER have been allowed).

However, the real chafing has been in the store; the communication about the funds players get, and the cost of the new cards. 

New cards that are kinda assy; Kid Omega and Cobra are baffling to me. On top of that, the price to get them is brutal. Players are supposed to get something like 500 "charge" points a day to help us afford these things but that wasn't communicated to the playerbase well at ALL. 

And these changes come to a game mode that people loved once upon a time! Now people are just frustrated and angry about all these things. 

Adding more to the mode didn't really help.

However, I want to say that: I get it. I'm a homebrewer, both of beer and Magic decks and I understand that people like to tinker with things! And this is a temporary thing as all things are in Marvel snap. 

But dang did this one not go well

Rethinking White

I found this breakdown on "fixing" the color White to be really interesting! 

For all of Magic's flaws, I appreciate that they are still trying to reinvent the wheel to make the game a better one.

Star Realms: Rise of Empire

My friend and I have completed the campaign for Star Reams: Rise of Empire, so I'd like to offer my thoughts. 

If you have played Star Realms, then you have a sense of how this game works. This cuts both ways, of course. because on the upside, the game is easy to learn. There are minor tweaks to how gameplay works, but that's all they are, minor.

Which is, of course, the downside as well. Rise of Empire doesn't do anything new with the game that isn't already being done. Adding three new shades of color isn't a gameplay twist, folks. It's just extra instruments.

Which is fine if the song is still good and if you like Star Realms, then the song is still good!

But one other drawback is that while the trade deck is shaped by your choices, the story the game is telling the players is a nothingburger. Sure, the winner of the last game gets to make some choices about what will modify the next one (will Vipers give you +1 gold or let you draw and then discard?) but that's the extent of the choices.

The story itself is on rails and the winner or loser of a game doesn't change where it all ends up. 

Now, I had fun with Rise of Empire but that's because I'm already part of the game's ecosystem. But I didn't come away impressed by it, and feel like they could have done something to expand on what the game played like, if they had wanted to. I certainly don't think this expansion will convince anyone who isn't interested in Star Realms to care about it. 

I definitely think that people shouldn't pop for the reusable version of the game; there is nothing to be gained, in my opinion, from the ability to re-use stickers and modify games every single time. Ugh. 

But if you like Star Realms, then yeah, Rise of Empire is a solid time. 

Late To The Party: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth

 I have, at long last, finished Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. It took me over 140 hours, and I wouldn't be surprised if I hit 150.

And I spent the last 20+  hours doing one thing: Fighting the final boss.

As a result, I have come away from a game that told a pretty interesting story, made some bold choices about what it wanted to do, and never left anything on the table, hating it.

After 130 hours in ANY game, I should be overleveled. I should be able to power through final bosses like a kid going through ice cream. 

But the final boss did several things that just ruined the entire experience. 

First; it was a multi-part boss that had no save points between them. You have to do all six stages of this boss in one roll and while there are checkpoints, so if you loose at stage five, you just start at stage five, but if you have to say, go to bed and try again tomorrow, you have to start the ENTIRE fight over again.

Second; It introduces a brand new character with new mechanics. You know when you shouldn't introduce a new thing? At the very end of the game. 

Third; it has an autodeath sequence, and autodeath sequences are BULLSHIT.  Third-point-five: it does a piss poor job of telling players how to avoid that sequence. Why? Because it introduces a new thing in the LAST BATTLE. 

Here's how that works; in battles, you have the life bar of an enemy, and a pressure bar that goes up the more attacks you made on that enemy. The more appropriate the attack, the further the pressure bar goes up: if you can max it, the enemy goes into a staggered state, where they can't do anything and you can just whale on 'em. 

The pressure bar is orange-except for in the last battle, when it is blue, and it is ONLY blue in the timer sequence before the autodeath move. 

Now, I hate the "pressure/stagger" element of fights anyway. But at least there would be some tactics involved with fighting enemies-or at least it would be if it was worth keeping all 230 enemies in your brain was worth it. 

However to change how that works in the last battle? WHAT IS ANYONE THINKING?

So when it was all over, instead of any sense of accomplishment, or vindication, I just felt exhausted and tired. Fuck this game, was my response. 

A few days later, I've softened my reaction but it's still soured. They failed to stick the landing, and I ended up feeling bad about the whole thing. 

It Never Lasts For Long

The card draw didn't quite do what I was hoping. Perhaps if Thrilling Discovery was an instant, I'd find it more usable? Rebecca's comment was, "I just don't feel like I'm doing something powerful, I feel like I'm discarding powerful things to get more cards."

So this is what I settled on.

4 Balefire Liege
2 Hearthfire Hobgoblin
3 Skyknight Legionnaire
3 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
4 Swiftblade Vindicator
3 General Ferrous Rokiric
4 Figure of Destiny
2 Boros Recruit

3 Legion's Initiative

4 Lightning Helix
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Legion Leadership
3 Path to Exile

7 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Sunbillow Verge
2 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
1 Castle Embereth
1 Needle Spires

// 4 Sideboard

SB: 4 Cursed Totem

The Sideboard is incomplete: Rest In Peace seems like a gimmie, Wear/Tear and Red Elemental Blast likely too.

I ended up cutting the Boros Swiftblades, because I wanted to keep the deck as low to the ground as possible and make room for more Legion's Initiative. The boost in Swiftblade's toughness wasn't the answer I was looking for.

Anyway, I like where this deck has ended up and we're on to the next one!

Marvel Snap: Masters of the Arcane

The new cards this month!

Merlin, the card for the month feels like a fun boost for the small decks archetype. I think it's going to provide a lot of interesting versatility while ALSO having the problem that randomizer cards have. Some moderate variance for fun times. 

Morgan Le Fay-does this card have a home? It's an interesting twist on Ghost Rider, but because she returns cards to hand, how much help is that? She's interesting, to be sure! At the very least, she could remove the drawback of having Corvus Glave discard Hela.

Jennifer Kale is fine. You play her anytime before T5 and you get a boost; I think this is a solid card that you'll be happy to see more often than not. Not sure that she's a Series 4 card though. 

Nicolas Scratch is a card I didn't understand until I saw it in action. The bonus happens whenever you play a "spell" like Merlin's Incantations or Agamotto's Ancient Arcana (or the upcoming effects from Clea & Dormammu). But because the card says "skill" I had no idea what that meant. Seems like there's going to need to be some wording cleanup. 

The Ancient One is absolutely cracked. Get it; the ability to duplicate ongoing abilities from Blue Marvel to Goliath is too strong to ignore. 

Nightmare has been the hype card of this season; everyone is expecting it to do insane things with Sauron decks. I don't think that's going to be true; I think the RNG is too  high for this to be consistently good. When it hits, it'll be a lot of fun but what I think Nightmare is mostly going to do is make players think extra hard about how to play their cards. 

Clea provides an interesting tool-I like the 'boost' decks that use Forge, Nakia, etc but now there's a little affliction added in. I don't think she's great but she's not bad. 

As for Dormammu, this one will likely spawn a new deck, some kind of destroy offshoot. Worth getting just for that: new archetypes always find interesting ways to evolve the game.

As for the game mode rewards (and yay, High Voltage is coming back) 

Cobra seems like a very niche card. How often will it be useful? It's not like Victoria Hand/SHIELD decks are running wild. Seems like a solution in search of a problem. The stat line isn't anything to write home about either. 

And Kid Omega's ability seems odd-do we need another take on Venom? But free cards are free!

Free Pizza: New Mutants Season

 I feel like this one came a little later in the season but, I still hit free pizza! 

While typically I am not a fan of Arishem decks because they are too chaotic, chaos seemed to fit very well in a meta full of Thanos decks. Color me surprised! That's emphasized all the more by the use of Loki. Having to suddenly play someone else's deck means knowing what the metagame is like and how decks basically function. 

I believe I saw a version of this on Snap Judgements and I wanted to play something that wasn't Thanos, a deck I just never seem to be comfortable with. Remarkably, this deck did the work! It needed me to play very smart; Arishem can throw a lot of different cards at you. Knowing what cards do and how they work is really important. 

But I got there, and that's always nice. 

Funny Things You Learn

One neat thing happened while I was reviewing Let's Take A Trip Together; I gave Rebecca Burn to Shine to play.

She asked for a copy of it, and started to tweak it for herself.  So when we played the decks against each other, I got to see how powerful Legion's Initiative could be. If the sequence is: T1: creature, T2, Legion, swing for 1, T3, Initative and attack for 6 or 7, this seems pretty good.

Another thing that I've been addressing is some card draw: in other games I've felt very on the edge, and reloading my hand seems important. So to that end I'm trying out Thrilling Discovery. 

The testing as been very positive, I have to admit. Burn To Shine has a nice curve, where there are some reasonable plays early, some stronger plays later. But it has been the addition of General Ferrous that has pushed this deck forward, without question. Having a difficult to answer threat early that generates a LOT of value means that a rough start can be smoothed out. That's a big deal.

Dream Away My Tears

 Let's update the list first, shall we?

4 Balefire Liege
3 Hearthfire Hobgoblin
2 Boros Swiftblade
3 Skyknight Legionnaire
3 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
4 Boros Recruit
4 Swiftblade Vindicator
3 General Ferrous Rokiric 

3 Squee's Embrace
2 Ossification 

4 Lightning Helix
2 Lightning Bolt 

8 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Needle Spires
4 Sunbillow Verge

SB:
4 Cursed Totem

Now is this the bestest list? Probably not. But it does do a few important things.

Moves Cursed Totem to the sideboard. There probably isn't a place for that in the metagame anymore but we'll keep it there. Burn To Shine is never going be an A+ deck. 

Adds a little more removal in the form of Ossification. And with General Ferrous in there, I've now got a T3 play that has the potential to really put pressure on my opponent. 

Fuck This

I get that Universes Beyond is there to exploit other IPs. 

But the advertisement inside of my game inside of my game is something I vehemently dislike. It isn't funny. It's just a crass grab for money. 

Burn To Shine

 Taken from the delightful Ben Harper song, I started off with this R/W Liege deck:

4 Cursed Totem

4 Balefire Liege
3 Hearthfire Hobgoblin
2 Boros Swiftblade
3 Skyknight Legionnaire
3 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
4 Boros Recruit
4 Swiftblade Vindicator

4 Squee's Embrace

4 Lightning Helix
3 Chance for Glory

4 Scabland
7 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Needle Spires

Years ago, this started off as a Cursed Totem deck, if you can believe that. Inspired by a writer at Starcity Games, who used the Totem to remove the drawbacks to cards like Glittering Lion and Flailing Manticore, while also serving as a way to pre-emptively deal with other problem cards at the time (notably the Rebels deck) this deck was an easy one to morph into a Balefire Liege deck. The tech was SO old, why not make it a fun aggro deck? 

But here it languished until a card I've had for years but had forgotten about was brought to my attention via a Thraben U video: General Ferrous Rokiric. 

Let's get going. 

The Retired: Gigantor

Ah, I so wanted this deck to be a thing!

3 Kilnmouth Dragon

1 Ryusei, the Falling Star

3 Fierce Empath

1 Bladewing the Risen

1 Steel Hellkite

1 Harbinger of the Hunt

1 Destructor Dragon

1 Atarka, World Render

1 Swift Warkite

3 Thunderbreak Regent

1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund

1 Thundermaw Hellkite

4 Fertile Ground

3 Naturalize

6 Mountain

3 Jund Panorama

6 Forest

3 Swamp

1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon

2 Jungle Hollow

2 Bloodfell Caves

1 Grand Coliseum

3 Rampant Growth

3 Painful Truths

3 Crux of Fate

2 Radiant Flames

So, what's wrong here? Well, the big concept was to make a massive Kilnmouth Dragon and that right there is a problem. Because it's a Glory of Cool Things card: you could have a 14 power dragon, right?

Then why aren't you just attacking with it? Why tap it to do 9 damage to something?

Which is a bit of the issue with the entire deck; all these big creatures and they don't just revolutionize the board when they enter. Which, if you're paying six mana for something, ought to do that.  

And that's really the issue here: when this  deck gets to 6+ mana, it doesn't play cards that brick the opponent's board. 

So I'm using all the cool stuff here and putting into the Ur-Dragon deck. It needs to be updated anyway, what with all the cool new Dragonstorm stuff.