Need To Be Fast All The Time

 I think I like where this is at. 

I had to learn some hard lessons with this deck, and I'm keeping it in rotation for a little longer, because it's excellent practice. 

Seriously, if you ever want to practice how to utilize instants optimally, this kind of deck is worth playing. It's starting to change the way I pay attention to Magic and that's definitely a good thing.

Plus, I want to practice with Skycoach Conductor, since I think that will add just enough value to nudge the deck forward. Kutzil's Flanker; you're going to the sideboard!

One other thing this deck will help with is not tilting out. I recently scrapped a game against Noah when he landed a Voice of Victory and I hadn't noticed. 

I immediately scooped, but looking back at the game, I should have utilized my tools to remove the VoV and then get back into playing my game. Because I wasn't paying attention, I felt bad and did the scoop of shame. Scooping wasn't the problem; not taking a breath to see if that was the correct thing to do, was.

Anyway, here's the decklist!

2 Skycoach Conductor // All Aboard

4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student

3 Sigrid, God-Favored

4 Brineborn Cutthroat

2 Merfolk Trickster

3 Errant and Giada

2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Fire Nation Occupation

3 Opt

4 Counterspell

2 Path to Exile

4 Brainstorm

4 Tundra

7 Island

4 Plains

1 Swamp

2 Contaminated Aquifer

1 Sunlit Marsh

4 Meticulous Archive

SB: 2 Kutzil's Flanker

Going Too Slow

Let's talk about Force of Virtue.

This was a card I subbed in for a bit, thinking it would be a great fit for the deck. My creatures are small, the Flash quality of Force of Virtue meant I could play it off the top of my library if Giada was out, or play it for free boosting all my other creatures. 

But what this card actually represents is "win more". 

I get caught on this all the time. Why win when you can SUPERWIN? The Glory of Cool Things biting me in the ass. 

But...no. I don't need to do that. Just win. That's enough. I have Snapcaster Mage, a card that is practically waving a giant sign telling me to add it to the deck and I was just blowing past it because I was looking at white cards.

Cynicism

Hey, they announced a 2-Headed Giant event for the Avengers Academy set coming out! That's pretty cool I think it's rad that 2HG is getting some time in the spotlight, I think it's a great way to play Magic. Let's see who the theme deck characters are....

Lessee...Best Known Comic Guy, Best Known Movie Guy, Best Known TV Guy, They Can't All Be Men, and They Can't All Be White. 

What an interesting lineup of choices!*

*My point is not that there shouldn't be women or non-white characters heading the decks. There should-the game should appeal to a broad group. My point is that you have the most cliched picks possible with art that couldn't be more boring if it came with bong hits. It's just too bad that there aren't any real choices when it comes to Avengers you can pick!

Should've Been Faster

OK, back at it.

I was lucky to make some tweaks right away! I had Meticulous Archive and added that to the deck promptly. Then put it to the test against Rebecca playing a RW mice deck (going to write about that soon!) 

First lesson: I need Brainstorm. Tamiyo is a powerful effect, but the investment to get her to flip is really only helpful if she can do it cheaply. This deck isn't built like that and it needs to be. 

Second: Merfolk Trickster can be used after attackers are declared to make creatures with flying or first strike lose that ability. I learned it the hard way but it is useful!

Third: Fire Nation Occupation is very strong and one of the deck's win conditions. Brineborn Cutthroat is solid, but I haven't seen it pop off like I would hope-yet. What I'm concerned about is having enough threats to win the game. 

Fourth: I do not have Aven Interrupter available right now. What is up with that?? But I do have Errant and Giada and this might be perfect!

Union

Hey, WotC employees got a union now!

Sure, it's for the Arena devs but still. Good for them.

Secrets of Strixhaven Set Review

The mechanics. The set. Let's go.

I think this set is a very cool one. Why bury the lede? Prepare is a great twist on the Adventure mechanic that fits in really well with a Strixhaven set. Repartee is probably the coolest BW mechanic since Extort, and possibly just as powerful. Increment does something really fun with the UG school, cementing it as the 'big mana' style of play colors. And the others, Flashback, Infusion and Opus all feel like they fit their respective takes on the color pairs (RW, BG, and UR respectively).

The introduction of the Avatars as the next Eldrazi style big bads is great, as it presents a nice mechanical counterpoint to the Eldrazi, caring a lot about color. 

 This set has me excited to play with it! 

Part of this is the mechanical overlap I'm seeing that reminds me of another set I really liked: Dragonstorm.

For example: Opus wants you to play spells, but if the spells cost 5 or more, you get an extra bonus. However, if you're slipping in a few Increment cards that also get bigger if you spend more mana, well isn't that just frosting? Or, if you have a deck using Flashback, isn't that pretty cool for some cards with a Repartee ability? 

I feel like WotC has been doing a very good job of presenting 3 color sets without making them 3 color sets, and it's definitely making for a more dynamic game. 

Let's talk colors. 

White
Interestingly, the White Emeritus is probably the weakest of the bunch. It probably doesn't matter much because there's some really good removal in this color and Stirring Hopesinger looks like an incredibly powerful effect. 

However, I should note that the Emeritus of Truce can also represent a swing in the boardstate if you're behind. That's not nothin'. 

In the meantime, there's cool things for Blink style decks, and possibly the strongest Lesson with Restoration Seminar? 

Blue
The hype machine that is the Emeritus of Ideation has got to be a thing, right? Five mana for that suite of abilities and the ability to Ancestral Recall? 

I know it's a terrible idea but I want to be the guy who makes the deck with Echocasting Symposium and Phage. Still, someone should live that dream!

I have a feeling that Encouraging Aviator will be a rockstar in limited. If I am reading it right, you should be able to attack with it, have it become prepared and in response to your declaration of attackers, cast Jump to give another creature you control flying. That's pretty strong.

I think Skycoach Conductor might have a place in my new Flash deck, and I really want to see how the Increment creatures go in my 1000 Shards deck. Future me actions. 

I think I like how Orysa Tide Choreographer can help dig players out of stalemates but I'm not sure it's good enough. Neat concept though.

Black
I feel like this color is the most consistently powerful in the set. It isn't incredibly flashy, but it feels very reliable. 

Even Ral Zarek, the planeswalker doesn't seem over the top. That's a good thing! (Also quite a character shift!)

It also seems like it has the most creatures that can re-prepare themselves, and that's interesting. And every Black creature with Lifelink just got a boost in their stock. 

Red
They are really trying to reward the '3 spells in a turn' deck happen, aren't they? Emeritus of Conflict seems like a fairly good reward. Add in Blue flying creatures and card draw for a little bonus and you can go a long way on very little mana. 

I'm very glad to see a card like Maelstrom Artisan. Land destruction isn't a popular strategy but non-basic land destruction should've been a dial WotC turned often. Keeping greedy manabases in check is a good thing. 

But aside from that card, like Black I feel like this color is reasonably consistent. I don't think they're doing anything new in Red, however developing its reach in the Instant and Sorcery area of the game is good. I also believe there's a nice balance between the creatures you want to run for payoffs, like Thunderdrum Soloist, and the spells you cast.

Green

While Green has a very strong Lesson-giving your creatures a permanent +2 every turn should end games rapidly-I feel like this color might be the underpowered one in this set. There's a lot of land searching, but having a bunch of mana for the Quandrix school is reliant on payoff cards and I don't see much in the way of big haymakers. Generating mana to cast spells to grow creatures means having spells to cast. Similarly, I count 3.5 ways to gain life in the color while I could 6.5 ways (I count pest tokens as a half) in Black. So how effective is it to build into Witherbloom?

I'm not saying that Green is bad; just that it seems like a great support color and not a main reason to go in a particular direction. 

Multi

This is where one would expect the set to shine, and it does. This is where I'm finding the support for going into GB-really a lot of glue for any color combination. I see this especially at uncommon, where a lot of these cards will be relevant in draft, however I'm excited for all of my enemy-paired Liege decks which should get some dynamite creatures to add!

Art/Colorless

The artifacts all fall in the 'workhorse' class for me; small effects you add to your deck to help smooth things out where your colors might be lacking. Nothing seems particularly bad nor exciting. 

The colorless creatures are, to me, all about teasing a future set. Yes, they're supposed to also be payoffs for a 4 or 5 color deck in sealed/draft, excepting The Dawning Archaic, which has some weird combo potential I'm only vaguely aware of right now. But what I really see them doing is taking another big bad slot as the Eldrazi did, as I mentioned before. 

So it's too bad that they aren't very exciting. I don't think they are awful, and they are clearly designed for Commander but...they also aren't very threatening and require a lot of setup for their rewards. 

Lands

I'm always happy to see dual lands of any sort get reprinted, and the new common lands function well for their ability. I think that Skycoach Waypoint is overcosted for what it does though: four (3 + tapping the land) to prepare an unprepared creature is taxing and honestly I think that if the cost had been reduced by one, you'd generate more excitement. 

Petrified Waypoint is obviously a niche card meant to help solve a problem I don't know we have, and Great Hall of the Biblioplex is unexciting as well. 

Still! I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this set. I think there's cool things to do, the limited gameplay looks interesting and there's already some cards I want to utilize in decks I already have. Really happy with this one!

260%

 I did not realize how many more Magic cards we were getting but the Professor lays it all out. 

It is...well it is just unhealthy for the game for us to get this many cards. I feel like we've been getting really lucky with sets lately, insofar as the cards seem interesting.

But I've also noticed physical mistakes-miscuts and the like.

And, as the Professor notes; the redundancy is going up, with cards doing nearly the same thing, set after set. 

That is inevitably going to make gameplay stale. It's going to burn players out. 

Sigh. I do not like late stage capitalism.