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Reminiscing About the “Weird Lands” of Early Magic

Posted on by Sigmund Ausfresser

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When looking for inspiration for article topics, a website I frequently browse is MTGStocks.com. I typically browse their Interests page, navigating to the “Market” pricing tab to focus on card prices of cards that actually sold, rather than the prices listed. I find these datasets to be far more accurate, particularly when dealing with older cards.

My eyes naturally gravitate to the cards with that little asterisk symbol (*), denoting the card is on the Reserved List (and therefore old). Just a few cards down the weekly list, I found something that stirred up fond memories for me, and immediately gave me my topic for this week.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Halls of Mist

My Early Magic Experience

I’ve mentioned before that I began playing Magic in 1997, around the time Fifth Edition and Visions were released. During that time period, my friends and I were strictly casual players, combatting powerhouses like Nightmare, Force of Nature, and Shivan Dragon with removal spells like Fireball and Dark Banishing. Our strategies were linear and simple, but it was some of the most fun I've ever had playing Magic.

One thing we neglected to an embarrassing extent back then was our mana bases. Our rule was simple: a deck with sixty cards should include twenty basics. That was the fixed ratio, and we rarely deviated unless we literally didn’t own enough basic lands, in which case we stretched things even further.

The idea of including nonbasic utility lands was foreign to our ways of thinking. I do remember including cards like Ruins of Trokair and Crystal Vein because they offered a simple-to-understand benefit: accelerating mana. For the most part, though, we viewed nonbasic lands as “weird.”

No, I’m not being opaque or simplistic for effect. I literally had a small stack of cards that I classified as “weird lands.” If I had to put a definition around the term, I’d describe “weird lands” as nonbasic lands that had abilities of varying oddness unrelated to producing mana.

Noteworthy Weird Lands

There were several “weird lands” from that time period, of various power levels. Ice Age and Alliances had some strange ones, including Halls of Mist, a card that has climbed nearly 70% in market price over the past week, putting it towards the top of the Interests list.

 I remember liking this card as a kid because of how disruptive it was, but we shied away from actually playing it for two reasons: First, the cumulative upkeep meant it couldn’t stick around for long. The second, and more important reason (for us), was that Halls of Mist didn’t tap for mana. The only land at the time that didn't tap for mana that I knew was worth playing was Maze of Ith. I knew about Maze because my stepbrother had a copy. I could never afford one myself.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Maze of Ith

Of course, this was a time before I knew that cards like Library of Alexandria and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale even existed. This week's retrospective isn’t to talk about cards that people already know about. I’m focusing on “weird lands” that people may not even know exist unless they played heavily back during that time period.

Ice Age Weird Lands

Beyond Halls of Mist, some other Ice Age weird lands I remember include Ice Floe and Glacial Chasm. These are nonbasic lands that don’t tap for any mana but do offer somewhat unique defensive abilities. I don’t think Ice Floe was ever any good, which is a shame because I seemed to open them consistently from booster packs of Fifth Edition.

Glacial Chasm, on the other hand, is a potential combo piece—combine it with Solemnity, and the upkeep cost can’t accumulate; use with Crucible of Worlds and Zuran Orb to have Glacial Chasm’s effect indefinitely; win via brute force by combining with Heartless Hidetsugu. It’s no wonder the uncommon land is worth a few bucks!

There was an error retrieving a chart for Glacial Chasm

Alliances Weird Lands

While Ice Age and Fifth Edition had some noteworthy “weird lands,” I found that Alliances was the biggest source of bizarre and variably powerful lands.

A quick search reveals eight nonbasic lands from Alliances. A full cycle of five color-centric cards is included that tap for colored mana or provide some unique benefit at an additional cost. The five lands, in dollar value order, are:

  1. Black: Lake of the Dead - $100
  2. White: Kjeldoran Outpost - $15
  3. Blue: Soldevi Excavations - $15
  4. Red: Balduvian Trading Post - $5
  5. Green: Heart of Yavimaya - $2

I love the artwork on Lake of the Dead. I distinctly remember appreciating the flavor associated with the card, even then. It offered such raw power in mana acceleration, but at a steep cost—classic black.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Lake of the Dead

My favorite of the five above though has to be Kjeldoran Outpost. I distinctly remember my stepbrother playing it against me and combining it with Crusade.

The five lands above are relatively straightforward and relatively well-known. There are three other nonbasic lands from Alliances though, that are slightly more obscure.

The Obscure Alliances Lands

While obscure today compared to the five lands above, in its day, Thawing Glaciers, was one of the defining cards of the Standard format of its day. It even helped power Magic great Jon Finkel to a fifth-place finish at the 1997 US Nationals. The Glaciers allow you to tutor out basic lands from your deck once every other turn. It’s odd having to return the Glaciers to your hand at the end of the cleanup step and not upon activation—I guess if you had ways of untapping lands, you could use the ability multiple times in a turn.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Thawing Glaciers

The next Alliances “weird land” is Sheltered Valley, a card I’ve never seen in play in my life. Without looking the card up, I couldn't even tell you what it does. Reading the card now, I realize its ability is pretty poor given the cost. You gain one measly life each upkeep as long as you control no more than three lands—are you kidding me? Life gain tends to be weak as it is, but holding yourself to just three lands to net that life gain is egregious. Sheltered Valley is rare though, so even though it's bad, the card is still worth a buck or two.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Sheltered Valley

The third and final Alliances weird land is worth even less because it’s equally bad but also uncommon. I’m talking about School of the Unseen.

There was an error retrieving a chart for School of the Unseen

This isn’t a complicated card—not by any stretch. It’s a land that taps for a colorless or can filter two mana to give you one of any color. That’s it. No weird “return to your hand” effects, no upkeep costs, and no combat interference. Why is it so cheap? My guess is that Commander players have access to strictly better cards, including Shimmering Grotto, Unknown Shores, and Painted Bluffs. Why pay two mana for something that one mana can buy you, in redundancy?

Sorry School of the Unseen, you are not only outclassed, but you’re also boring. At least Sheltered Valley offers a unique ability.

Last, But Not Least

While I'm keeping this article short this week, I'd be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge a few other “weird land” favorites from my childhood.

Fallen Empires introduced Storage Lands, as well as the cycle of lands that entered the battlefield tapped and could be sacrificed for two mana of their respective color. Homelands had one of my favorite land cycles—filter lands for three colors. They’re not powerful, but they’re flavorful and I love their artwork.

Visions had a bunch of nonbasic lands that didn’t involve colored mana—perhaps seeing all of these is what inspired me to start collecting nonbasic lands in the first place. Undiscovered Paradise, Griffin Canyon, and Quicksand all come to mind, with the latter being plentiful in my booster packs.

If we’re evaluating cards strictly on the artwork, however, then some of my all-time favorite “weird lands” must be the cycle of “bands with other legends” lands from Legends.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Unholy Citadel

The lands themselves are some of the worst ever printed. Their artworks, however, are some of the best, with a classically dark aesthetic. I appreciate these so much that I recently purchased a set of five for my collection. For those following my articles, you’ll know this is a big deal as I have been striving to reduce my collection significantly, not add to it. These Legends classics were too cool to pass up, even though I admit I didn’t know about their existence until years into my time with the hobby.

Wrapping It Up

Hopefully, this walk down memory lane gave you a feel for the kinds of nonbasic lands we had access to back in 1997, and why we didn’t play with most of them. The cards were either too niche, too weak, or both. Those that weren’t, were often expensive. Granted, “expensive” for me back in 1997 meant $10 because I was a poor middle school kid without a bankroll. This was a significant barrier. As a result, we played our Ice Floes, our Halls of Mists, and our Aysen Abbeys and we loved every minute of it. What about you? What weird lands from the past do you have fond memories of? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

Speculating on Oathbreaker, Magic’s New Official Format

Posted on by David Schumann

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Oathbreaker Basics

Wizards of the Coast recently recognized the fan-favorite format Oathbreaker as an official format. In Oathbreaker, each player picks a planeswalker and a "signature" instant or sorcery around which to build a 60-card deck. Color identity rules, as in Commander, apply to what cards can be included in an Oathbreaker deck, including the signature spell.

Both the oathbreaker and their signature spell begin the game in the command zone, and similar to Commander, can be cast from the command zone repeatedly throughout the course of a game. Each successive casting of an oathbreaker or their signature spell costs an additional two colorless mana. Additionally, you cannot cast the signature spell unless your oathbreaker is in play. Personally, I really like this particular requirement as I dislike Commander decks whose Commander isn't a part of their plan and thus often remains on the sidelines.

A Disclaimer Before We Dive In

Oathbreaker has existed as a fan-driven format for several years. I even built a deck or two when my group first heard about it. We didn't find the format as fun as regular Commander and it fell out of favor quickly at my local game store (LGS). Wizards of the Coast making Oathbreaker official will almost certainly move some cards financially. The format will likely be given some side event opportunities at MagicFests, and demand for the best cards will likely cause price jumps as folks figure out the best cards in the format.

Targets For Speculation

When building decks for Oathbreaker, a number of powerful combos for oathbreakers and signature spells immediately jump out. Wrenn and Six and Crop Rotation, Narset, Parter of Veils and Winfall, and others. Many of these cards either have an established price thanks to other formats, or a significant volume of copies out in the wild, minimizing opportunities for speculation.

The challenge for us in finding speculation targets for Oathbreaker is identifying cards that are desirable in the format, but not already in demand for Commander or other formats. Cards that meet those criteria are the ones that are most promising. Here are six cards that I've got my eye on. I've broken these up into a few categories: signature spells, oathbreakers, and others.

Signature Spells

There was an error retrieving a chart for The Elderspell


This seems like an auto-include in every Oathbreaker deck with black in it given that one's Oathbreaker is critical to each deck. The fact that you can three for one with this card and ramp your own Oathbreaker towards ultimating seems amazing. Just as importantly, while many Commander decks do play Planeswalkers, enough don't that this card isn't a Commander staple in most environments. It shows up in only 1% of decks on EDHREC.com.

Thanks to TCGPlayers' sales data, we can see a lot of copies of The Elderspell already started moving on March 16th, the day Wizards of the Coast announced the format was official on Twitter. It's also important to note that despite it feeling like War of the Spark is a recent set, it came out back in 2019 before Wizards started doing all the variant printings. This means that for The Elderspell, your choices are limited to non-foil, foil, and prerelease copies. As Oathbreaker is a singleton format, I expect the foil versions to maintain a premium price.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Tasha's Hideous Laughter

Our second signature spell is a powerful one for any mill Archetype. Mill decks tend to be beloved by their pilots but are rarely competitive in most environments. Tasha's Hideous Laughter is much more powerful in Oathbreaker than in Commander where it sees the most play, partly because the decks in Oathbreaker are 41 cards smaller. The card has additional value in that it exiles the cards it mills, and hits all opponents at once. In more competitive environments, where the average converted mana costs are typically lower, Tasha's Laughter is even more potent. I imagine casting it three times is enough to end most games with a win.

Oathbreakers

There was an error retrieving a chart for Xenagos, the Reveler

Xenagos, the Reveler is actually the only oathbreaker I have on my list right now. The number of decent planeswalkers that aren't mono-colored is not all that big, giving him an immediate upside. Equally important is that Xenagos is one of the few that can generate large amounts of mana. A common strategy with him as the oathbreaker is choosing a signature spell that makes a lot of creature tokens. His +1 ability will generate more mana than its previous Iteration. This combo can allow one to repeatedly cast their signature spell and hopefully swarm the board. I also like that Xenagos is currently in the "bulk" Mythic price range despite having only two printings.

Other Cards For The Deck

There was an error retrieving a chart for Vadrik, Astral Archmage


I've been a fan of Vadrik, Astral Archmage in Commander, but the blue and red mana requirements greatly limit what decks he can be in for Oathbreaker. That said, the fact that the mana cost reduction scales with his power means it can be very abusable in the right type of deck. I think that finding cards that can help eliminate the "tax" on the signature spell may end up being some of the best cards in the format.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Semblance Anvil

While the potential mana reduction for Semblance Anvil is limited to two, the fact that it is colorless means it is one of a few options that can be used in non-blue or red decks. I could see it fitting well in any Oathbreaker deck that wants to cast its signature spell multiple times, but not use it to combo. The biggest issue with Semblance Anvil is that it has inherent card disadvantage thanks to the nature of the Imprint mechanic itself.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Hex Parasite

This card was in the bulk bin for a long time, but every time new cards are printed that care about counters, Hex Parasite gets better. It serves as a repeatable way to kill opponents' Oathbreakers. As most of the Oathbreaker decks typically want to abuse their signature spell, if you can keep the board clear of planeswalkers, your opponents can't cast those signature spells. It also provides a way to repeatedly lose life for no mana if you have a reason to do so. The Parasite only has a single printing way back in New Phyrexia, and is sitting in the $2+ range as of this writing.

Final Thoughts

To be fully honest, I'm not sure where Oathbreaker will go. It will be hard to dethrone Commander as the most beloved and played format. However, there are definitely players who love to brew and build and a new format provides ample opportunities to do so. A lot of new Planeswalkers have been released since the format was initially founded, so I do think there is plenty of room for players to create new and interesting decks. I think the signature spell is the most interesting part of the format, and it creates a lot of unique opportunities to build around.

What do you think about Oathbreaker? What decks are you building, and what cards do you have on your radar? Let me know in the comments.

The Best of ONE: Lists, Rankings, and Made-up Trophies

Posted on by Robert Genuario

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While there is still some time left to play Phyrexia: All Will Be One (ONE), the advent of Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered and the upcoming March of the Machines is causing us to switch focus a little earlier than planned. In our time-honored tradition, we now send off an embattled, but misunderstood, format the way we always do: with a bunch of subjective lists and awards!

Archetype Power Rankings

  1. RG Oil: RG Oil features a murderer's row of top commons. Red provides access to some of the format's best removal; the creatures are strong, and range from aggressive to midrange. The haste creatures like Chimney Rabble and Furnace Strider are potent top-decks, and the litany of one- and two-drops make this deck feel extremely consistent. When this archetype is open, it has it all.
  2. Wx Toxic: The best Toxic decks get the most out of their white cards. Crawling Chorus and Flensing Raptor consistently deal early poison, and the deck doesn't stop there. Basilica Shepherd and Incisor Glider represent a lot of damage, while Planar Disruption and Indoctrination Attendant give the deck a lot of gameplay as well.
  3. RW Equipment: This deck benefits from using the two best colors. The synergies aren't as robust as in Toxic or Oil, but the deck has access to a lot of really good cards.
  4. UW Artifacts: This deck is a little finicky, but has some solid tools. Cards like Eye of Malcator are a bit of a liability, while Mandible Justiciar is an excellent two-drop. Chrome Prowler is under-drafted, and this deck gets the most out of it.
  5. The other red decks: Just having access to red cards goes a long way. While blue and black aren't ideal pairings for them, if you can get deep enough in red, it often doesn't matter.
  6. Sorry, Sultai: The Sultai trio struggles to keep up with the aggression in the format. That being said, when Gitaxian Raptors are wheeling, these decks can hold their own. The proliferate synergies don't matchup well in the format, but they're not nothing.

Color Rankings

  1. Red: Red's commons are deep and versatile. While the only red decks I really want to be in are RG or RW, the color is so deep that as long as any deck is mostly red cards, it feels fine.
  2. White: White has the most partners. As the format's most aggressive color, basically every other color can support its plan. Whether we are a white-based toxic deck, or leverage artifact creatures to beat down, starting off with white cards means we have a lot of options. Unlike red, however, the white cards are more specific to their archetypes. While many of the toxic cards are good enough for non-toxic decks, they lack the raw power level of the red cards.
  3. Green: There's a significant drop-off between white and green. Green pairs well with red, but after that has a hard time finding its footing. While it can be a decent support color, it is pretty shallow at common. That being said, uncommons like Cankerbloom, Evolving Adaptive, Armored Scrapgorger, and others raise the power level of any deck.
  4. Blue: A lot has been said on blue in the past weeks, but it still ranks fourth. Blue's defensive posture is a liability in the format, and while Gitaxian Raptor and Chrome Prowler are both strong, it has a lot of commons that are just too slow.
  5. Black: Black is inexcusably shallow at common, and lacks strong enough uncommons to work consistently.

The Uncommon Common

While the best common in the format is probably Hexgold Slash, that's not a card that really feels like an uncommon. This was the hardest format to select just one card for this award. Crawling Chorus was a personal favorite, and Chimney Rabble does a lot of damage. However, the Uncommon Common award goes to a card that single-handedly elevated the power level of its color.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Contagious Vorrac

Contagious Vorrac does a lot in this format. The body does a nice job holding the fort, and while this isn't a format that I wanted to splash in, this card made it easier. Additionally, having the flexibility to proliferate a poison counter, while also adding oil to a Gitaxian Raptor or Evolving Adaptive, is a valuable piece of versatility.

The Gustwalker Trophy

This column has always recognized the value of two-drops. In this format, the rankings have fluctuated. Mandible Justiciar and Duelist of Deep Faith both have strong cases. The data points to Barbed Batterfist as the best performing two-drop. However, there's another red two-drop that I prioritize over the For Mirrodin! equipment.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Axiom Engraver

Axiom Engraver does a lot of small things that add up to a potent package of value. It's easy to overlook the ability to sift through extra lands or make sure we hit them on curve. It gets value off of proliferate and helps power up the oil synergies. However, its synergy with the scourge of the format puts it over the top.

The Scourge of the Format

It's the middle of a game that's stalled out. We're trading tactical attacks with our opponent, trying to manage the board as best we can. We're both trying to scrape out small pieces of value, and then out of nowhere, the game ends. Because of a common.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Hazardous Blast

Hazardous Blast is the type of card that can end a game on the spot, and in such an aggressive format, it breaks parity like no other card. When we're in a close game, it's the number one card we're hoping to avoid. People probably play it in too many decks; however, Axiom Engraver can help us bin it when it doesn't immediately win the game. Because of cards like the Engraver, we can fit this card into more decks.

This is a card that we want to be able to play around, but often times won't have the opportunity to. Sometimes it will win us games no other card can. Unfortunately, it will cost us some, too.

Common Removal Power Rankings

  1. Hexgold Slash: Cheap removal is so important in this format, and the fact that this thing can knock out four- and five-drops in the right matchup makes it especially valuable.
  2. Planar Disruption: While enchantment-based removal is a liability, the aggressive nature of the format lessens the drawbacks. Arrest for two mana without drawbacks is probably the best this effect has ever been.
  3. Anoint with Affliction: Great removal in a really bad color.
  4. Ruthless Predation: Epic Confrontation still helps green decks snowball their advantage one set later.
  5. Volt Charge: I expected this card to be a top common, but it underperformed. This format was too fast for this damage-to-cost ratio. The proliferate was nice, but rarely mattered.
  6. Whisper of the Dross: This card was a poor man's Hexgold Slash, but Slash was really that good. I wanted at least one of these in all my black decks. It helped us take back the play, and the proliferate matters in black.
  7. Mesmerizing Dose: This card rose up my pick order towards the end of the format. My best blue decks did not want the double blue, but when they did, this card was fine. The decks that want this card make great use of the proliferate.
  8. Charge of the Mites: This was a decent effect in my heavy aggro white decks. While I never happy to include this card, it still could move threats out of the way.
  9. Annihilating Glare: There's not a ton of extra material in the format. Still, this kills anything.
  10. Molten Rebuke: Too expensive, and better off in the sideboard.

The Myron Larabee Award

This is a new award for our sunset ceremony. The Myron Larabee award is named after the Jingle All The Way antagonist, precisely crafted by the veteran thespian Sinbad. At the climax of the film, Myron falsely claims victory, attributing his success to his "bigger brain." Soon after, inevitable hilarity ensues as our namesake villain falls victim to fate.

Thusly, this award goes to a card that often underperforms, but occasionally, in its greatest moments, makes us feel like geniuses. The inaugural Myron Larabee Award goes to an infinitesimal arachnid: Copper Longlegs.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Copper Longlegs

This card could force action in the early turns and slow our opponents' development, and in its best moments, was a blocker that saved us damage, while contributing to our poison clock. Don't be mistaken, this card was mostly terrible. In its best moments it was a godsend, the touch of genius that put our deck over the top. For that, we salute the Spider.

Final Words and Format Rating

There were a lot of complaints levied against Phyrexia: All Will Be One. It is an aggressive format with demanding rules of engagement. However, adhering to those rules yielded domination. It's hard not to love a format when we're winning, and this was my winningest format since using 17lands. This format demands we play to the board early and often.

ONE did have some failings, and ones that may have made the format look patently terrible to those not following its strict playbook of aggression. Red and white were significantly better than blue and black. This discrepancy in power level made it too easy to go red and white, and that imbalance is an overall negative.

The aggression did a nice job painting over some of the absurd bombs in the format, but it would have been nice to see slower decks have more of an opportunity. The black proliferate theme felt specifically underdeveloped.

Overall, I give this format a C. It was a lot of fun, but not quite on the level of recent favorites like Dominaria United or Kamigawa Neon Dynasty. Here's hoping our coming limited formats provide a better experience... and, of course, plenty of trophies!

Only a Fool of a Took Would Pre-Order Lord of the Rings

Posted on by Joe Mauri

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This is a big one. "The only one." I am not going to pre-order The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth and I don't think you should, either.

Do I hate J.R.R. Tolkien? No, heavens no. I've read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion. I've even watched the movies and the Netflix show. Am I a fan? Not in my estimation, but I enjoy high fantasy settings including Middle-Earth. If that makes me a fan, then, so be it.

So why would I suggest not pre-ordering this new product? There's one big reason.

The Most Literal Card

THE One Ring

Call it the biggest marketing stunt in Magic history, but printing a one of one The One Ring is both interesting and concerning at the same time. There are already fairly reliable offers of $100,000 for the Ring, and Jim Davis at CoolStuff thinks it could be the first million dollar Magic card. Where we differ, however, is that while Jim thinks that's okay, I think this is definitely not okay.

The concept of one-of-one, ultra-premium "masterpiece" cards was developed by Fleer in 1997. This is not a new, original idea, so what is it? At best, Wizards trying to pressure you with FOMO; at worst, a complete scam.

There are going to be tens of thousands of copies of the Ring printed, with a bundle alt-art version guaranteed in every single box. There will be hundreds and thousands of special serialized and non-serialized Sol Ring printed in Quenya, the language of the High Elves. The set has the usual piles of variants in terms of showcase, double-rainbow foil, alternate art, etc. But the One Ring will only be available in English-language Collector Boosters. Except it's not really the One ring.

Now… If They Did Something Bolder

Perhaps you've heard of me...

This is Seto Kaiba, a big bad villain in the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe who possessed the ultra-rare card, Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Kaiba had three of them, the most legally allowed in any deck. However, when he found out someone else had one, he challenged them to a duel, won the card, and then destroyed it. He did this so that he could be the only person to ever use the powerful card in a deck. If the One Ring in LOTR was like that, that there was exactly one of them, it would be brave, different, ultra-collectible; I might even buy two cases of Collector Boosters. However, a fancy thing that is artificially scarce?

Sound Familiar?

Wizards has done this before. There are plenty of examples to choose from. Look at the red ink variant of Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos. Sure, there is not just one variant red ink copy of Hidetsugu. But there are going to be plenty of variants of the One Ring out there, too. Some napkin math is all you need to determine you should expect one red ink Hidetsugu in about 1300 Collector Boosters; you know, after opening over $40,000 of product. It's not "1 of 1" rarity, but that's still very rare, if artificially rare. What does that artificiality mean for pricing? Early on, these sold for thousands of dollars each, but now the price continues to decrease.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos

What about the first instance of serialized cards in BRO? They were selling at about the $1,000 level at launch, but now most are creeping under $300, much like the "rare" foil shattered glass Transformers cards introduced in the same set. Keep in mind each individual number is as rare as the One Ring. There can be only one 007 Wurmcoil Engine!

Magic is not new to cards having extremely low availability. However, that was based on authentic, low-print runs, many years later, and oddities like Alternate 4th Edition and Summer Magic. Now? Hype and speculation. When it comes to how collectible something is, these qualities simply do not hold the same weight.

All Flash and No Substance... Still Sells Cards

I understand Wizards needing to sell cards; that's their business, of course. The problem is when you use FOMO to drive sales, but are not making the product any better, you get downgraded.

Fundamentals. Card quality is the worst it has ever been. Foil cards are pre-bent "pringles," and many cards come pre-damaged in packs. While Wizards is busy counting their profits and raising prices, ordinary people are getting a worse product. How do you keep the hype machine oiled month after month? Golden Tickets, of course!

There was an error retrieving a chart for Collector Protector

Magic has always been in the scratch-off business, but they have upgraded considerably to lottery status now. When printing $100,000+ cards, what security measures is Wizards taking to ensure a fair and truly random outcome, and what third party are they employing to verify this? If you know, please share. Additionally, what safeguards have they taken to ensure that this doesn't happen?

Golden Arches, Golden Ticket, Golden Scam

Once upon a time, McDonald's ran a Monopoly game that could award customers with cash and prizes. They even hired a marketing company to provide security and legitimacy, proving it was random. Furthermore, they hired an auditor to follow and verify that the most expensive game pieces, $1,000,000, were not being improperly distributed.

How did that go? The corrupt individual providing "security" switched game pieces secretly and made deals with people who "won" the best prizes, provided they pay them first. This only came out because they did this over and over again, many times, over years of games, until they were finally caught. Damningly, with the Ring, Wizards only has one chance to get it right.

Wizards Is No McDonald's

A FOMO-inducing marketing stunt at least, but at worst, the One Ring is a complete scam. If one of the most recognizable and largest brands in the world can't secure a contest, how is Wizards going to? And even if Wizards takes the same precautions, there is no guarantee it will be fair. However, the hype train has left the station, and this is where we get to tin-foil-hat levels of conspiracy thinking. I don't believe this, but, I have to consider outcomes especially in light of similar real world events.

The Magic community at large does not agree on much; however, I'm certain everyone wants to believe they could open a million dollar card in a pack. For Wizards, if no one opens the One Ring, people will wonder if it was all a marketing stunt with no substance. In theory, there cannot be evidence to the contrary. Think about that. If it's truly fair, if it's truly random as best as they can make it, Wizards cannot verify exactly where the Ring goes. If they could, then it's not much of a leap to suggest they seeded the outcome. What good is a hyped product that is never found?

Given the large volume of new Magic that sits unopened, it's not a stretch to believe a single particular card could be languishing on a shelf, forever. Heck, there is so much new Magic product it ends up in landfills. This is a lose-lose for Wizards in most cases.

Secondary Market Prices Will Be Terrible

Pre-order prices are already through the roof for LOTR Collector boxes, and there is no inclination that this will be a limited product. It makes no sense to purchase any product after the first day of release. Would Wizards really wait to put the One Ring in a second print run of the set? That would mean anyone that pre-ordered had zero chance to get it.

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So this brings us to the fact that secondary market prices are going to be literal pennies, as only pre-order Collector product makes any sense to purchase whatsoever; that's the stuff with the million-dollar prize. Sealed prices will explode, temporarily, and opened packs will be dumped into the market quickly.

You Can Still Win

For people who are not affected by FOMO and can wait, I see an easy way to collect all the cards you want for fractions of a penny, or to get sealed product from people who bought too much and didn't open the Ring. Black Lotus is a collectible; Summer Magic Blue Hurricane is a collectible. The One Ring? Artificial. Don't get caught up in FOMO, play the odds, and like Warren Buffet says: "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful." In this case, the only winning move is not to play.

Play Fundamentals: Playing Control Faster

Posted on by David Ernenwein

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Magic: the Gathering is a very hard game with many moving pieces. One of the harder ways to play this game is to play a dedicated control deck. Where other decks are proactively developing their gameplans, the control deck is all about pushing back against opposing gameplans, dictating the flow of the game until they can take the reigns and win. As a result, there's a tendency for players to under-test their control deck and then play too slowly, agonizing over what to interact with and what to let slide.

As I mentioned months ago, playing faster and testing better are critical to success in Magic. I was quite vague at the time about how to do both when it came to control decks. The issue is that all that advice applied equally well to control as other archetypes. However, there's a perception about control that makes players more resistant to faster play, especially coupled with testing inadequacies and win condition choices that can create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The General Problem

Control is the slow archetype. Aggro and combo are both interested in doing their thing and ending the game as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, control is about lengthening the game by preventing others from executing their plans. This necessarily means that control requires a lot of thought, patience, and decisions to play correctly; you want your games to go long, and long games have more turns, which means more decisions. Consequently, control players tend to play very slow deliberately, and feel perfectly justified doing so.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Supreme Verdict

Unfortunately, that slow-deck concept is frequently used as a shield and justification for playing too slowly. In fact, some play so passively and defensively that they miss chances to win and end up with worse records than necessary. This in turn can lead them to abandon control as an archetype.

The Playtesting Problem

The first problem I see with players trying to play control decks is that they're inexperienced. Not just with playing a given matchup, but with the deck itself. This leads them to play slowly and poorly. As mentioned in the previous article on the subject, players already don't goldfish their decks enough. Suggesting that they goldfish a control deck frequently is met with scorn, if not outright derision. "How can you goldfish a control deck?" they will usually cry; "it's an interactive deck, and everything is contextual. You can't make plays without something to interact with or contextualize!"

No Excuses

I'm not moved by those excuses. Players must determine if their deck works. BEFORE they start playing actual games! This is true of every deck. It is particularly true of control decks, where every card slot is critical. Control decks have less forgiveness in their deck construction relative to aggro decks because there are no wrong threats, only wrong answers. Any creature that can attack can end the game, and so can never be completely dead. An answer that doesn't answer anything will always be dead.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Solitude

Playtesting and goldfishing are far more important for control decks than other decks precisely because they're interactive decks. It is essential to iron out the kinks in testing because any inefficiency or poor choice will be amplified in-game. Control decks need to have the right answers at the right time and be able to cast them, which is a far more precarious strategy than playing creatures and attacking. Thus, they must find out if it works.

How to Goldfish a Control Deck

Everything I said about goldfishing other decks holds true for control. However, some questions from that article need to change when dealing with control decks. Here are the things to focus on when playing a control deck against nobody.

#1: Does the Mana Work?

The first reason to goldfish is to see if the mana works. This is true for all decks, even control decks. Goldfish the deck a few times to see if it can cast spells. However, for control decks, the principle should be modified to:

Does the mana work on time?

Missing an early land drop is always crippling for a deck's development. It can be fatal for control, as they fall behind and are overwhelmed. Control goldfishers need to ensure, first and foremost, that they aren't missing early land drops.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Celestial Colonnade

Additionally, control decks want more lands than most decks. Aggro rarely wants or needs more than 3-4 lands in a whole game. Control will need more to cast their top-end, and frequently wants as many as possible to cast as many spells as possible. How often will the deck hit the needed number of lands in the relevant time period? This is easy to find out in goldfishing.

#2: Does the deck do The Thing?

Finding out if the deck's strategy works or not is always important. Obviously, this will be hard for an interactive deck as there's nothing to interact with. So we'll modify the question to:

What can the deck interact with?

Take an opening hand. What sort of deck would it be good against? Play it out, imagining enemy plays, and see if that would continue to be true. Then ask if those decks are decks you'd be likely to face. At the same time, keep track of how long it takes for a given start to interact with other decks. A control deck that produces many hands that beat other control decks, but can't cough up removal against aggro, needs reevaluation.

Questions #3 and #4, How Quickly Does the Deck do The Thing? and Do I Know How to Do The Thing?, don't need to be altered for control.

#5: Is The Thing worthwhile to do?

It is always hard to evaluate whether or not a deck is doing something novel and good, or is just a worse version of an existing deck. This is true of all decks, even control decks. However, for control decks, there needs to be an addendum:

Is it possible to control the game?

Actually taking control of the game in the traditional sense is hard, and dependent on metagame and cardpool. The right mix of answers, card advantage, and win conditions may not exist at all in Standard, or be worse than all other option in older formats. Goldfishing will show if the deck is doing something powerful enough to work, or if the format is pushing towards a midrange strategy that just plays the control role in aggressive matchups.

Playtesting Control

Once goldfishing is done, then it's time for playtesting to determine actual viability. This is where a lot of players stumble, because they don't play enough test games with their control deck. Control decks are generally harder to play, and their games take longer. Therefore, players will get tired of playtesting a control deck more quickly than other decks (or, in fewer games), and may hastily decide whether control is either great or terrible.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Kaya's Guile

This is a mistake. Control matchups are dictated by experience as much as the cards themselves, and over time, a matchup may shift based on familiarity. Often, the early success or failure of a control deck in testing comes down to inexperience with or against the deck. More matches are necessary to get that experience, and then find out how good the deck actually is.

Playing Control Faster

The other issue is that players frequently fail to win the game as a control player. There have been many eras of my competitive Magic career where the X-X-1 bracket was known as the control mirror bracket. Even after extensive playtesting, the pressures of an actual game will make a control player slow down, or at least feel pressure to do so. This will lead to running out of time and therefore unintentional draws. Following the advice from my original article on the subject will help out considerably here.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Jace, the Mind Sculptor

However, there are two problems unique to control decks when it comes to speed. The first is playing too passively, and the second is not playing enough win conditions, and/or only expensive win conditions. It seems counterintuitive, but a big reason that players go to time with control decks, and not even in mirror matches, is that they spend too much time playing to not lose rather than win. I've often said that Modern UW Control wants to win only by concessions, and many players act like that's no joke. They don't want to win the game; they want the opponent to acknowledge their victory. That's great for boosting egos, but terrible for win rates because of time rules.

The Passivity Problem

The key to winning with control is remembering that a control deck will be behind early. It's reactive and won't be playing threats out, and therefore it isn't trying to win the game, but to not lose. At some point, the control deck turns the corner, gets ahead, and starts winning. Most players are good at the first part but fail to recognize the latter, which means they fail to actually win the game.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

I have watched a frustrating number of players, both in videos and in person, refuse to play out a win condition when the opportunity presented itself, and lose as a result. The opponent being tapped out and you having five lands with Counterspell in hand is a golden opportunity to land that Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and start putting away the game. Instead, they'll do nothing and wait until they can cast more than one answer alongside Teferi. However, that opportunity never comes, and they start to fall behind and eventually lose.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Shark Typhoon

I've seen countless Pioneer UW players sit on Shark Typhoon, refusing to either cast it or cycle it because they don't want to, quote, "expose themselves." Expose themselves to what, precisely, I never get an answer for, and it frequently makes no sense as they've got the game otherwise locked up. Each turn the opponent gets another draw step that might turn the game around. There's no reason to fear the unknown and wait. Once the game is stabilized, take it!

Hoping for Perfection

The same problem applies to answering threats. Too many control players wait too long to deal with threats, meaning they're at low of life when they finally start trying to win. If anything goes even slightly wrong, they're dead. Players will wait for absolutely perfect circumstances to maximize their spells and just let themselves die to answerable threats. In my opinion, Gabriel Nassif is a poster child for this mentality, frequently holding answers for potential threats and falling to far behind against actual threats.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Counterspell

Thus, the biggest ways to play faster as the control player are actually answering threats and playing to win the game, not just survive. There are windows where the corner can be turned, and missing them pushes towards actually losing. Take the opportunity to actively get ahead and close out the game. Never assume the opponent will give up.

Lossett's Lesson

What really annoys me is that Magic's history shows that active control win conditions work as well or better than the few big threats. Legacy Miracles was the most successful control deck in Magic's history. From initial genesis in 2011 as UWx Counterbalance until Sensei's Diving Top was banned in 2017, the deck was the premier control deck in Legacy. It even lingered on in diminished form until Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath arrived.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Sensei's Divining Top

Probably the most successful Miracles player was Joe Lossett. He was a demon of the Star City Games circuit and frequently Top 8'd Legacy Grand Prix. When Top was banned, many players said that if more Miracles players played like Joe, there'd have been no need for a ban. He was so practiced that he could quickly Top, navigate complex board states, and then know exactly when to turn the corner and win the game. In other words, he did everything I've been discussing today.

The Key

However, a forgotten piece of Joe's success was that he rarely received unintentional draws, especially against the mirror. His personal speed was a piece of that, but he was also actively trying to win the game quickly. The typical win conditions in Miracles were exactly two each of Snapcaster Mage, Entreat the Archangels, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Joe ran those, plus an additional Snapcaster, three Vendilion Clique, and two Venser, Shaper Savant.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Vendilion Clique

His intention was to play more as a tempo deck in the mirror and avoid the drawn-out card advantage fights that other Miracles decks were notorious for. He could also use Karakas to protect his legends or reuse their abilities. This meant that Joe never missed an opportunity to start winning the game; in fact, he was usually actively looking for the chance. Control doesn't need to have a slow and expensive win condition. It can win with anything, including a humble 2/1, so why not win quickly?

Play to Win the Game

Control is a slower archetype than combo or aggro. That is no excuse for how slowly so many players play it. Take testing and goldfishing more seriously, and speed will come naturally. Additionally, there's no reason to take forever to win the game. Control players will naturally play faster if they start more actively looking for the opportunity to win rather than continuing to not lose. This is a simple change that any control player can make. Or don't, and let me keep beating Legacy Uro decks on Magic Online because they clocked out. It's your choice.

Counterpoint: Why I Still Play Magic

Posted on by Sigmund Ausfresser

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Last week I wrote an evocative piece that examined motivations one may have to sell out of Magic completely, as a friend recently did. I hope people found the topic insightful. My editor suggested I consider the other side of the coin—what would be the reasons to stay engaged in playing Magic?

The question was timely because I hadn’t played a single game of digital Magic for the first ten weeks of 2023. Then I decided to fire up Arena and try my hand at Standard. I tweeted my results.

The devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other trope feels appropriate here. On one shoulder is the devil—tempting me to sell my collection to further invest in the college fund—and leave behind this often time-consuming and frustrating game.

On the other shoulder is the angel—my conscience—reminding me of the ways Magic has been healthy and rewarding for me over the years (or is it the other way around?). I already discussed the reasons to want to sell out and quit the game. This week I will provide five reasons why I prefer to stay engaged with the game of Magic: the Gathering.

Reason #5: Flexible Source of Fun

Magic can be time-consuming and expensive—in fact, I see many people in the community (especially on Twitter) venting about the high barrier of entry to the game. Formats like Legacy and Commander can be quite costly if one wishes to compete at a high level. Hours and hours of tireless practice are required to upskill and become a finely tuned player.

The amazing thing about Magic is that the game itself has no such expectations of you. If you want to play in high-stakes tournaments, you can certainly do that. If, on the other hand, you want to find piles of commons to play with a few friends, you can do that too! Thanks to the massive amount of reprints and supplemental products, you can even brew a halfway decent Commander deck for less than $20.

If you go the route of budget, casual play, there’s no expectation that you remain highly engaged with the game on a regular basis. You can play with your friends once a year—the cards will be just as effective and fun the next time you play. Sure, if you play at a public spot with new opponents you’ll have to learn what new cards do, but it’s not something you need to invest time in.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Farewell

This kind of flexibility—the ability to engage with Magic whenever and however you’d like—is what keeps me in the game. I work full-time and have two kids (11 and 6 years old), so I have minimal time to commit to this hobby. Because I can hop on Arena for ten-minute bursts, I can keep up-to-date on Standard. Because I can buy and sell cards from my couch, I can remain engaged with the financial aspect of the game. Because I can follow and engage on Magic topics on social media, I can maintain interest and participation in the community.

I love that Magic affords this complete flexibility. You can enjoy golf by flying to Florida to play on a professional course or by playing putt-putt at a local miniature golf course. Magic offers even greater flexibility than this!

Reason #4: A Way to See the World

Should you be so inclined, Magic can provide an excuse to travel to locales far and wide. Now that large events are back, there are plenty of exciting reasons to travel somewhere to enjoy this game.

When I think back, I realize I have played Magic in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, and possibly even other states I’ve forgotten. Outside the United States, I’ve played Magic in Belgium, Germany, France, The Netherlands, and England. I even managed to play in a Legacy Grand Prix in Strasbourg, France, by far one of the coolest experiences. It seems like no matter where I travel around the globe, there are Magic players to engage with.

I’ll never forget the time I traveled to Kronberg, Germany for a business trip. I posted online that I was heading there, and another Magic player responded that he and a group of friends got together at a local university in Frankfurt on a weekly basis—he invited me to join, and I had the opportunity to do so! This spontaneous connection, with no bias or judgment whatsoever, was only possible because of Magic.

Whether the travel is for Magic specifically, or simply as a way to augment a trip already in progress, this game is a fantastic way of building bridges.

Reason #3: A Rare Hobby that Pays You Back

This reason is a significant one for me, personally. If you want to play golf on a regular basis, you need to invest in golf clubs, balls, and a bag, not to mention suffering the endless fees and costs associated with playing on well-manicured golf courses. It’s not easy to play golf cheaply (for example, is it worthwhile to take a club and a ball in your backyard to play with friends?). All that equipment adds up, and if you decide to change clubs there’s little chance you’ll get out the full amount that you put into them.

Not so with Magic. It’s one of a scant few hobbies that you can invest in, play for as long as you’d like, and potentially make money when you want to pivot or try something new!

There was an error retrieving a chart for Cruel Bargain

Depending on how you engage with the game, there are varying degrees of potential here. As a collector of Old School cards, I find this to be a particularly attractive component to remaining involved with Magic. I don’t have to worry about selling cards quickly out of fear of a reprint or a shifting metagame. Minus a few exceptions (including the current Magic recession), holding onto Old School cards leads to financial gains given enough time. There is no motivation to hurry and cash out.

Of course, if your primary method of engagement with Magic is playing Standard and/or Limited, then you’re not as likely to turn the same level of profits, or else you’ll have to remain more actively engaged to sell out of cards before they rotate. Even still, many powerful cards will maintain at least some value for years.

You could argue that used golf clubs will always maintain some value as well. To that, I counter that it’s very easy to browse online shops (using Trader Tools, for example) to find top buyers of cards. Submit the buylist order, drop the cards in the mail, and have cash within days. This process likely isn’t quite so convenient for golf club selling, though I am sure a golf aficionado reading this will provide some counterpoint.

Reason #2: Sense of Community

I’ve alluded to this previously when I talked about traveling abroad and finding friendly Magic players. One thing I love about Magic—since I began playing in 1997—is that I felt a sense of belonging in a world where I was often classified as a misfit.

In middle and high school, I struggled to fit in. In college, I was better off because I went to a small engineering school filled with nerdy kids like myself. Even beyond college, I’ve had a difficult time making many new friends. I know I’m quirky, I’ve learned this about myself over the years.

The wonderful thing about Magic is that the game comes with a community of people who share a common interest. I could never drum up more than two friends as a kid, but nowadays I have over 3,000 Twitter followers who will interact with me about the game we all love. I often joke that I wish Twitter existed when I was in middle school because I would not have felt so much like an outcast because I would have had access to thousands of like-minded individuals.

This community has done so much for me over the years, up to and including enabling my career-long goal of leveraging Magic to fund my kids’ college educations! I could not have even dreamt up such an endeavor if it weren’t for the power of this community. Thank you all for your continued engagement (and if you’re not already, feel free to throw me a follow on Twitter)!

Reason #1: Lifelong Friendships

Community is very important—I love that this group of individuals exists where I feel comfortable being myself. At work, with family, and even with certain friends, I need to censor some of my eccentricities. With Magic folks, I can be 100% genuine to myself, and I don’t have to worry about judgment.

Imagine, then, the long-lasting, positive effect making friends through Magic has had on my life. In seventh grade, I started a brand new school in a new district. I knew no one. It was a struggle to fit in. Our financial situation was precarious at best, and this further isolated me from a community of mostly well-off kids who grew up with each other.

Then I learned about Magic. Shortly thereafter I made a couple of friends who also enjoyed the game. These two friends, Dan and Chris, are still great friends even to this day. Our connection started over a common interest in a game but turned into lifelong friendships. Even though we live in different states and are in different stages of life, I am confident we would still do anything to help each other out.

Outside of these two, I also made some strong bonds with Magic players by simply interacting with them regularly online. One such friend, who goes by pi in the community, was one who I met through the Quiet Speculation forum a decade ago. We developed a connection through frequent discussions in the forums, and it led to my visiting and staying with him in The Netherlands! Even though we’ve only met in person a couple of times, I cherish his friendship and know that I can always reach out to him if I need someone to talk to.

This, in my opinion, is the best reason to remain engaged with Magic. It helps me keep in touch with old friends, and will probably help me make new ones. These are the friendships that can last a lifetime.

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Wrapping It Up

As tempting as it may be to sell out of Magic and free myself from its bonds, I don’t know if I can truly and completely go down that path. Ever. I’ve been involved with this game for 26 years now and I don’t even want to consider a world where I can’t enjoy its many benefits.

Whether it be the entertainment of the game, its lucrative nature, or the friendships and community it fosters, I’ll always want Magic to be at least a small component of my life. Even as I age and play much less often, I now have two children who may share an interest in the game; connection with my kids is yet another potential benefit to playing Magic. It truly is the gift that keeps giving.

I admire (and to an extent, envy) those who quit the rat race and escape the endless loop that is Magic. However in doing so, I wish them luck and I hope they can find another source of friends, community, money, and entertainment elsewhere as they did with Magic. Magic is one boon that will be difficult to find an adequate replacement.

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Sigmund Ausfresser

Sigmund first started playing Magic when Visions was the newest set, back in 1997. Things were simpler back then. After playing casual Magic for about ten years, he tried his hand at competitive play. It took about two years before Sigmund starting taking down drafts. Since then, he moved his focus towards Legacy and MTG finance. Now that he's married and works full-time, Sigmund enjoys the game by reading up on trends and using this knowledge in buying/selling cards.

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All Will Be Won: Salvaging Bad Decks in ONE Draft

Posted on by Robert Genuario

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Bad decks. Every format has them. We have decks that we're "supposed" to be looking for, and others we're supposed to avoid. But how can we?

Sometimes we chase an off-color rare into a disaster. Sometimes it's just hubris, a cloying urge to prove the pundits wrong. There are some occasions where we're just bored of drafting "the good colors." But eventually, we all do it. Eventually, we draft the bad decks of the format.

However, just because we're not doing the best thing in a format doesn't mean we can't profit, or even trophy with a "bad deck."

What Are the Bad Decks?

The good decks are more accurately described as "the desirable archetypes we should seek out in the draft, if our goal is to optimize our win percentage." In Phyrexia: All Will Be One (ONE), the decks that fall into this category can be described as meeting one or more of the following criteria:

  • Decks with any two of the three Naya colors.
  • Decks that have fifteen or more red cards.
  • Decks with good, aggressive, cheap creatures.
  • Base-white Toxic decks.
  • The UW Artifact decks (although this is a little bit generous).
  • Decks that want to win using a tempo-based strategy.

Conversely, the bad decks are likely to fall into these camps:

  • Decks using any two colors in the Sultai Wedge.
  • Three-color decks.
  • Decks that are splashing without a great reason.
  • Toxic decks relying on Pestilent Syphoner or Prologue to Phyresis.
  • Decks that want to leverage an attrition-based strategy.

Just because we find ourselves building a bad deck does not mean that we should be resigned to punting our run. On the contrary, these decks often yield the most rewarding experience when we're able to be successful with a weaker strategy. However, to do this, we need to make sure we're cognizant of exactly what we're doing and how we plan to win.

Wrong Plan, Right Pieces

This deck basically checks off every box on our bad deck criteria. We aren't quite a three-color deck, but Venser, Corpse Puppet is a questionable splash. We're a blue deck, which, you know, isn't great. We're a little concerned about our early game, which is problematic in ONE. Nonetheless, this deck was able to get to seven wins.

7-2 UGb Proliferate

Creatures

1 Cankerbloom
1 Copper Longlegs
2 Thrummingbird
1 Venser, Corpse Puppet
1 Dune Mover
2 Gitaxian Raptor
1 Bloated Contaminator
1 Chrome Prowler
1 Unctus, Grand Metatect
1 Oil-Gorger Troll
1 Watchful Blisterzoa

Instants

1 Bring the Ending
1 Experimental Augury
2 Prologue to Phyresis
1 Serum Snare

Sorceries

1 Distorted Curiosity
1 Viral Spawning
1 Vivisurgeon's Insight

Artifacts

1 Prophetic Prism

Enchantment

1 Mesmerizing Dose

Lands

2 Swamp
8 Island
1 The Surgical Bay
6 Forest

This deck is reliant on an early Prologue to Phyresis, which is the sixth worst common according to 17lands.com. Gitaxian Raptor, Mesmerizing Dose, Viral Spawning, and Oil-Gorger Troll are a slog to fight through. While we often don't want cards like Distorted Curiosity and Vivisurgeon's Insight in this format, but they played well in this deck. As we're dragging out a resource war, cards like this served as haymakers. We just need to know how to support them through gameplay.

Building this deck, I knew our clock would rarely be as fast as our opponent's. So we need to be able to trade, sometimes at a loss, and recoup the value later. We want to win the late-game, but if we fall behind early, there won't be a late game to win. Keeping a high life total is essential, especially when we don't have Bring the Ending for an opposing Hazardous Blast.

Playing Outside the Rules

This format has rigid rules of engagement, and we need to anticipate our opponents following them. With this deck, Prologue is a decent two-drop, but it doesn't line up well against Barbed Batterfist or Crawling Chorus. When we expect to fall behind, being able to double-spell early is very valuable. While drafting decks like this, we want to make sure that we're keeping our curve low. If we're going to take time off to draw cards, we'd better be ready to deploy them in a hurry.

Additionally, we're okay trading two-drops for combat tricks. The transaction slows our opponent from developing their board while saving damage. We can draw cards later, but our life total is fairly limited. It's one thing to "make them have it." In decks like this, we just need to make them use it.

Trained to Train Wreck

This started as a RG deck, but moved to blue, in the hopes of splashing a pair of Cinderslash Ravagers. We opened pack three and immediately greeted a Nissa, Ascended Animist. We couldn't shake the blue, but that was okay.

7-1 RUG Nissa

Creatures

1 Cacophony Scamp
1 Evolving Adaptive
2 Axiom Engraver
1 Branchblight Stalker
1 Copper Longlegs
1 Predation Steward
1 Adaptive Sporesinger
1 Contagious Vorrac
1 Atraxa's Skitterfang
1 Lattice-Blade Mantis
1 Serum-Core Chimera
2 Cinderslash Ravager

Instants

1 Hexgold Slash
1 Blazing Crescendo
3 Serum Snare
1 Volt Charge

Sorceries

1 Carnivorous Canopy

Artifacts

1 Sylvok Battle-Chair

Planeswalker

1 Nissa, Ascended Animist

Lands

2 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Island
1 The Autonomous Furnace
5 Mountain
6 Forest

Early on in this draft, I was seeing powerful cards, but couldn't find a clear direction. Terramorphic Expanse and Axiom Engraver help in these situations together. Additionally, cheap interaction like Hexgold Slash and Serum Snare can hold together a lot of decks. This draft was brutal, but we were able to walk out of it with an absolute powerhouse because we sensed that conflict and were rewarded for adjusting to it.

When it comes to building a bad deck, we need to make sure that we have a good reason to do so. We had some really powerful cards, and because we prioritized facilitating pieces and cheap interaction, we were able to make it work. While I might have forced this concoction without all the glue, it would not have gotten to seven without those pieces.

Single-Card Showdown: Carnivorous Canopy vs. Ruthless Predation

Carnivorous Canopy is a card that is steadily climbing up my pick order. With the Naya colors getting more attention, our decks are forced to rely on marginal role-players, and this one always seems to step up. It's a great answer to Gitaxian Raptor or even a bomb like Bladehold War-Whip.

In a deck like this, I value a Carnivorous Canopy over something like Ruthless Predation. While the fight spell is the more powerful option, it's also more reliant on a streamlined approach. Fight spells are great when we're getting out in front of our opponent and playing creatures on-curve. This deck plays tap lands and three colors. As a result, we may not have our over-statted three- and four-drop down on the turn we want them. It may then prove tougher to maximize a fight spell.

A deck like this needs clean answers, and Carnivorous Canopy can do that, if not so flashily. In most decks we want the Ruthless Predation and it isn't close. In this deck, I'm prioritizing the Canopy.

Rules for Breaking the Rules

We should have a good reason to be in one of the format's bad decks. However, the best reasons strongly contribute to a plan. As always, the most important thing in deckbuilding is having a plan. As we draft, we need to prioritize the support cards for that plan.

Last week we talked about the contest of "better vs. more valuable," and while Terramorphic Expanse is not a great card in this format, it's more valuable than a lot of other cards to a three-color pile.

Additionally, just because we're breaking the rules doesn't mean we should anticipate our opponents to do so as well. Most people are (correctly) playing ONE as a tempo format. We need to anticipate aggression, and draft in a way that helps us in faster matchups.

Finally, the bombs in this format have been significantly diminished in the face of the rampant aggression. If we're not hiding behind the format's rules of engagement, we need to recognize that we're less protected from cards like The Eternal Wanderer and Thrun, Breaker of Silence. This means removal and interaction are at a premium. Hopefully our reasons to play this kind of deck includes answers to those threats or trumps to them.

"ONE" Final Note

Since drafting this article, I've seen a lot of content encouraging players to specifically draft blue. While I've provided my thoughts on the color, it may be a suboptimal time to experiment with the format's less-popular colors. While personal experience always represents a small sample size, I've found red to be more open than it should be, and RG Oil is still the easiest deck in the format to draft, and more often than not, Naya will yield far more success than the format's other colors.

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Robert Genuario

Rob Genuario has been playing Magic: the Gathering off and on since Tempest. He primarily plays limited. In addition to playing Magic he is an English teacher. You can find his thoughts on teaching through his newsletter at Teachwithmrg.substack.com

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Posted in Drafting, Free, Limited, StrategyLeave a Comment on All Will Be Won: Salvaging Bad Decks in ONE Draft

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The Top 8 Ways to Win More at Competitive EDH

Posted on by Joe Mauri

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Remember how I mentioned having fun and winning not mattering that much? All complete lies. Fabrications. These are things you say to yourself when you lose to ease the pain. No, in Commander, AKA cEDH, it's all about the W.

Of course, at a table, there are three other players who are also looking for that win. So how do you ensure victory? Well, there are a few tried-and-true tricks to winning games in cEDH, and today we'll review some of the best!

#1: Don't Look Like a Threat

There was an error retrieving a chart for Disinformation Campaign

Don't let your opponents know that you are a threat and have a serious deck. Never show other players what you are working with until it's too late. This is actually the primary reason so many people say their deck is a "seven" when it's actually their best competitive deck. It's all a mind game, really. Keep your strategies hidden.

At one event I can remember, the players at the table talked about the cEDH meta. While I did not necessarily believe them, they claimed to not run Thassa's Oracle. Turns out one of their win conditions was Underworld Breach, and no, they did not run Thoracle. At the next event, I knew I'd have to stop a storm/graveyard deck and did not need to tutor for answers versus Thoracle. If they were trying to "next level" me they failed, because I had the right answers during that game.

Furthermore, do not make your move until it is a neck-breaking finisher. Unless you are in top-deck mode or 1v1, you never want to show that the shields are down. In cEDH, if three players are tapped out, it's likely one player is about to win. Merely leaving up blue mana can be enough to buy yourself one turn.

#2: Ixnay on Six

You need both answers and threats lined up for turns three, four, and, five. Be extremely careful with how many "uncastable" cards you put into your cEDH decks. Keep in mind more one- and two-drops means you will be able to play two cards on the early turns of the game, which are the most important. Five- and six-drops may never happen. There are some notable exceptions, like decks playing Rograkh, Son of Rogahh with Culling The Weak, but overall, six-mana cards are more often liabilities than assets. Not every five-drop is game winning, like a resolved Ad Nauseam; be critical!

Aggressively cut cards that cost six or more. Even in decks that have ways to make big mana, the game might be over before you get your turn. Spending two turns ramping, but being tapped out, can cost you wins. It's definitely a mistake to have too many win conditions and too many value cards. You want answers, tutors, threats, and payoffs, in that order.

#3: Prepare to Answer

Even more important is having one- and two-mana answers available every single turn for the first few turns of the game.

The most common mistake I've seen in competitive builds is not a lack of answers per se, but an overemphasis on threats and win conditions. A hand with three answers, one tutor, and one threat is way better than a hand with one answer, two tutors, and two threats. In many situations, not having the answer right now can mean the game is over. There are many cards that are undervalued as answers for competitive games. Keep in mind that most cards boil down to effectively being Time Walk, and the best decks play lots of cards like that.

#4: The Four Cards of cEDH

While it's fairly commonplace to say "I effectively Time Walked them," what about Fog or Shadow of Doubt? These cards also describe the most common effects of the format. Paying one mana to stop combat, or two mana to stop a play and also draw a card, are scenarios you want to replicate over and over again. Chains of Vapor and Rapid Hybridization are effectively the same card, especially under the locus of a game being just a few turns long. But they are also very similar to Fog in that case. Cards that effectively read "pay one mana and the game doesn't end" are what many early turns boil down into.

After adding cheap interaction, it's time to add more The Cheese Stands Alone, AKA win conditions. Of course cards like Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation are extremely attractive. There's nothing wrong with playing efficient win-cons but keep in mind that strong metas will focus on countering the most recognized cheeses. Looking at EDREC can give you some "wisdom of the crowd" on both what is good to play and what is overplayed and needs to be countered, but don't build for a meta that does not exist! It's better to throw together anything, learn your metagame with that, and then adapt to attack what you see.

#5: Recognize Standout Cards

Check your EDREC Top 100 lists for these cards. Did you find them yet? Of course not! While I believe Muddle the Mixture and Angel's Grace have seen top 100 before, most of these other cards will likely never make the list.

Of course, this is all meta-dependent. Most of these cards are circumstantially powerful. But here's the thing: it is up to YOU to figure out if they are meta-breakers or not. EDREC cannot tell you if there are a lot of Isolate and Nix targets in your pods. In mine, Angel's Grace is sometimes an uncounterable win condition for one white mana when opponents "go off" and draw their entire decks but cannot beat split second.

Also, Muddle the Mixture is probably the best card in a lot of decks. It's close enough to Counterspell and tutors for 44 of the top 100 cards, including Demonic Tutor if you need even more options. Always be aware of trends within your local meta, which drastically alter what cards are broken versus merely good. Many of these cards are effectively one mana, stop someone from winning, and draw a card. That's crazy levels of power when it happens!

#6: Zig When They Zag

Netdecks can make Top 8, but rogue decks win tournaments. There's always so much resistance to change and innovation that most players fall back on the echo chamber of what was previously good is still good. Don't fall into that trap! Be ready to take some risks and play a few potentially questionable cards based on the local meta. In a statistically perfect world, you only win 25% of your game on average. That means your losing percentage is 75% at the deck shuffling screen. Do not be afraid of taking some risks!

#7: Practice, Practice, Practice

Once upon a time, a player said, "Why not tap all my lands during main phase?" even though they could have done their play on another player's turn. Well, that other player cast Stasis. Practicing creates solid play habits.

Additionally, practice allows you to be familiar with tricky interaction that might be tough to decipher in the middle of a close game. It's better that you are defaulting to "autopilot" and "muscle memory" and have experienced many different game states, so you are not learning as you go during an event. Conversely, if you have an opportunity to introduce some difficult-to-navigate cards into a pod that has never seen them, you can capitalize on their lack of familiarity.

#8: Don't Hate the Meta, Hate the Player

Diplomacy is a fickle beast in competitive. If you are known to be a good player or are favored to win, you will oftentimes have an uphill battle on your hands. The entire table might be against you from the very beginning. There are ways around this common issue, too.

Rather than building a somewhat balanced deck with both threats and answers, you might pile into either a degenerate deck or a stax monstrosity. If you know it will be three-on-one with balanced decks, try to play faster; if it's a more controlling meta, you can turn to a prison strategy, which inherently stops everyone. If that fails, try and ally with the next weakest player, because they may also be behind.

In any case, you need to utilize the habits and attitudes of the other players to your advantage. Betrayal was a commonly played card because it gave great card advantage for only one mana, and you knew you were being attacked anyways. Alternatively, you can let the table know you've given up on winning but are going to ensure that one player in particular is not going to win. That can sometimes remove pressure from yourself and give you a chance to make a comeback while the second and third player strengthen their own game. Game moves at the expense of the player in first place are the easiest to rally behind.

Winning Isn't Everything... Until It Is

A brilliant philosopher once said, "If you're not first, you're last!" In winner-takes-all events, this is very true. You can improve your chances of winning significantly with effort and practice.

A final point should be made regarding time management. There is only so much time. Playtesting is vastly more important than anything else. Seeing interactions in real time beats any amount of simulated practice and speculative analysis.

Furthermore, if you've been curious about playing competitively but are waiting on something, like acquiring cards for example, don't wait! Play with what you have, now! If The Chain Veil Teferi, Temporal Archmage can win a Black Lotus, anything can happen.

Have you practiced for a competitive event recently? What was your most important realization? Did you go with or against the local meta? Let me know in the comments!

Data Danger: Modern Is Not as Diverse as You Think

Posted on by David Ernenwein

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Last week's Modern metagame update indicated that Modern is quite diverse. The online metagame had 84 distinct decks while the paper metagame had 108. Modern is a huge format where almost anything can win. However, I'm often left wondering how meaningful that statement actually is, and judging by general online discourse surrounding Modern, I'm not alone. So, I've decided to follow up on that update and investigate from a new axis: Modern's strategic diversity.

Pop Quiz Time

Consider the following three-turn opening sequence:

Turn 1: Scalding Tarn, fetch and shock Steam Vents, cast Dragon's Rage Channeler, cast Mishra's Bauble, surveil away Unholy Heat. On opponent's upkeep, Bauble the opponent.

Turn 2: Cast another Bauble, surveil away Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, play Island and Dash Ragavan then attack.

Turn 3: Cast Expressive Iteration, surveil away nothing, exile Misty Rainforest, play Misty, attack.

What deck is this? Archetype? Colors? Another example:

Turn 1: Tarn, pass. On your end step, crack for Zaitora's Proving Ground.

Turn 2: Shock in Steam Vents, cast Wrenn and Six, uptick.

Turn 3: Tarn, fetch and shock Blood Crypt, cast Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.

Again, which deck? And finally:

Turn 1: Windswept Heath, go. On your end step, crack for Raugrin Triome.

Turn 2: Shock in Breeding Pool, cast Wrenn and Six, uptick.

Turn 3: Play Plains, cast Teferi, Time Raveler, downtick.

Take a moment to lock in your answers before proceeding to the next section by leaving them in the comments!

Answer Sheet

It might seem obvious which decks I'm describing, but of course, I've set a trap. Which the observant and/or genre-savvy probably noticed. However, that's also a trap. You'll have to trust me about which decks I was looking at when making that puzzle; if you don't, I'm willing to swear on whichever holy thing it will take (as long as it's not dangerous and/or icky).

  1. This is not UR Murktide. It is actually this Temur Combo Breach list by Takuto Tsuboi.
  2. If you answered Indomitable Creativity, your answer is technically correct, but insufficient. You must specify the color combination for full points. In this case it was this Temur Creativity deck with a black splash, piloted by scipios.
  3. This deck is 4-Color Bring to Light deck by OZ_Senpai.

Did anyone get them all right? Did anyone get any of the decks right? Probably not, and that's my point. There are a vast number of decks that play extremely similarly despite being demonstrably different decks. This begs the question of how strategically diverse Modern actually is.

Valuing Diversity

While there is no way to know how many decks a format can support, or even should support, players will agree that more is preferable to less. The more decks that are playable and, equally importantly, competitive, the better.

This idea underpins my yearly State of Modern article. I mentioned it then, but Modern's competitive diversity is suffering. For better or worse, the best decks take advantage of Modern Horizons 2 more than other decks. As my thought experiment shows, this means that lots of decks feel extremely similar because they're all playing the same cards.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Murktide Regent

This translates into many games feeling dismayingly similar, at least initially. I deliberately stopped on turn three because on turn four, each deck is going to start playing spells that help identify and differentiate it from the pack. However, even then, there are so many decks with similar plays that it is plausible to play through an entire match without even a highly informed player figuring out exactly what deck they just faced. This begs the question: how much of Modern's "diversity" is really just the same strategies masquerading as different decks?

Quantifying Diversity

In order to reexamine the metagame with an eye to its strategic diversity, I'll need to combine similar strategies. There is necessarily some subjectivity in doing this, but there's also a lot of very obvious decks to combine. Grouping the Creativity decks is easy, as they all share the same general strategy and most of the same cards. Their differences are in the details. Same thing with the Crashing Footfalls decks. Meanwhile, and despite MTGGoldfish's laziness, Domain Zoo is a distinctly different deck from Counter Cat, the former being a midrange beatdown deck and the latter a tempo deck.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Crashing Footfalls

Then, there are the Omnath decks. Does having Omnath in the deck constitute an Omnath deck, or does that distincton require more? I decided that The Omnath Deck is a midrange deck with Wrenn and Six and lots of removal, allowing me to sweep together all the midrange and control variants into one deck. However, the Glimpse of Tomorrow combo deck, as well as Copycat, remained separate, since they're sufficiently distinct from other Omnath decks and each other. Similarly, there were many different Storm decks in the data that remained separate because they play very differently.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Saheeli Rai

For UR Murktide and similar decks, I decided that the mix of Channeler, Ragavan, Bauble, Iteration, and Heat formed the core of the deck. All decks that shared that core were grouped together under the Izzet Aggregate banner, regardless of whatever ancillary strategy was bolted to that core. This meant all the tempo, midrange, and combo decks together, since they all play the same early game.

The MTGO Aggregated Metagame

After going through all my data for February and aggregating all the similar strategies, I was actually surprised at how few aggregated decks ended up on my tier lists. The only one that didn't make the list was the aggregate Goryo's Vengeance that was getting some play online. However, the overall diversity of both mediums was greatly affected, and the stats changed considerably.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Goryo's Vengeance

I am only working with the population statistics, as that's what's relevant for discussions on strategic diversity. For MTGO, the total unique decks fell from 84 to 68. The total number of decks on the tier list fell from 25 to 19. The adjusted average number of decks rose from 8.02 to 8.45, so the starting line moved up to 9. The adjusted standard deviation (STdev) rose to 13.62 from 11.46. This means that the aggregate Tier 3 begins at 9 and runs to 23, Tier 2 begins at 24 and runs to 38, and 39+ is Tier 1.

Deck NameTotal #Total %
Tier 1
Izzet Aggregate17119.52
Rakdos Scam799.02
Creativity Aggregate778.79
Omnath Aggregate606.85
Hammer Time586.62
Rhino Aggregate434.91
Tier 2
Yawgmoth364.11
Burn364.11
Amulet Titan323.65
Mill323.65
Izzet Prowess273.08
Living End252.85
Tier 3
UW Control Aggregate202.28
MR Moon141.60
MR Artifacts141.60
MG Tron141.60
Merfolk121.37
Counter Cat111.26
Humans101.14

The first thing to mention is that thanks to the aggregation, Omnath moved over the line to be considered an outlier alongside the Izzet Aggregate and Rakdos Scam. It was therefore removed from the stat calculations as normal. The second thing to note is that this isn't actually as bad as I was expecting. I thought the data would be far more skewed.

Izzet Aggregate Ascendant

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Izzet Aggregate was the top dog by a wide margin. Normal UR Murktide is already an outlier, and I added a whole bunch more decks to it. This result was inevitable. However, I thought it was going to be worse. As-is, Izzet rose to 19.52%, which is an absurd 10.50% above its next rival. But given that Murktide accounts for 6.85% of that gap, this isn't too terrible of an increase.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Expressive Iteration

I'm not saying that holding almost 20% of the metagame is acceptable. In Modern's healthiest periods, no deck was ever more than 10% of the metagame, and there was minimal overlap between decks. This is closer to Standard numbers, with the worst I remember being Scars-Innistrad Standard where all the top decks started with Gitaxian Probe, [card]Delver of Secrets, and Geist of Saint Traft.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

What I am saying is that I expected the overall aggregate to be much higher, up around 25%. I know how many different versions of the Izzet deck appear in my data and had it in my head that they took up a lot more space. It could be that thinking about all of this every month just lets it take free space in my brain. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as bad as I expected. To be totally clear, though, it's still not good.

Omnath's Not Dead

Remember how after Yorion, Sky Nomad was banned, Omnath stopped being a boogeyman? Remember how many said that it was dead? That is clearly an exaggeration. What has actually happened is that midrange Omnath decks have heavily diversified. Where there were once only two versions that switched off in popularity, now there are enough variations to satisfy any pilot.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Omnath, Locus of Creation

This aggregate category consisted of:

  • 4-Color Elementals, which uses Risen Reef to get value off the evoking Solitude and Fury.
  • Tribal Elementals, which has all that plus more elemental tribal effects.
  • 4-Color Control, which doesn't have Reef or any other tribal effects and runs more noncreature spells.
  • 4-Color Blink, which exploits Ephemerate.

And a couple really niche builds that I don't have specific names for because they're singletons. Elementals is by far the most popular one, and even made Tier 2 in February. Blink is the next most popular and was Tier 3. Together, they moved the deck up to Tier 1. With all the other offshoots, it's the best performing non-outlier deck. That's quite strong for a supposedly dead archetype.

The Paper Aggregated Metagame

As the online data went, so too did paper. The total unique decks fell considerably from 108 decks to 90. The decks making the tier list fell from 23 to 20, which isn't as bad a fall as online. There was still only the one outlier, so the average barely changed from 7.37 to 7.47. The STdev did rise, from 11.80 to 13.85. Therefore Tier 3 begins at 8 and tuns to 22, Tier 2 begins at 23 and runs to 37, and Tier 1 is above 38.

Deck NameTotal #Total %
Tier 1
Izzet Aggregate14617.87
Hammer Time597.22
Creativity Aggregate587.10
Rakdos Scam566.85
Rhinos Aggregate546.61
Amulet Titan526.36
Omnath Aggregate404.89
Tier 2
Burn293.55
UW Control Aggregate283.22
Merfolk273.30
Yawgmoth273.30
Tier 3
Living End151.84
Mill151.84
Affinity131.59
Izzet Prowess131.59
Counters Stoneblade111.35
Domain Zoo101.22
Mono-Green Tron91.10
Jund Saga91.10
Hardened Scales80.98

The aggregated lists made it up to Tier 1, with only the UW Control Aggregate missing. It was just straight UW Control and two Esper Control lists in the first place, so that isn't unexpected. Izzet Aggregate's share of the metagame is lower than online, but the lead it has over Hammer Time is almost the same as online, coincidentally. Thus, everything I said a few paragraphs ago still holds true.

How Healthy is Modern?

The metagame's concentration around the Izzet core of Channeler, Ragavan, Bauble, Iteration, and Heat is quite high by Modern's traditional standards. There are many other strategies that hold large overall shares of the metagame despite being spread between multiple decks, many of which are quite different in terms of actual play. I genuinely thought when I decided to investigate this that decks like Creativity and Omanth would take up larger fractions of the metagame than they actually did. My excuse is that it's hard to wrap your head around all the data; you have to actually do the work for it to make sense.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Indomitable Creativity

It should be noted that if I defined the decks and how I aggregated them differently, then different outcomes would have emerged. For example, if instead of Omnath and Creativity decks I put all the decks that played Wrenn along with Teferi, Time Raveler. Such a grouping would include a number of decks not currently in this list and leave some of the Creativity and Omnath decks unaggregated. This would have dramatically changed the picture.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Wrenn and Six

While there are many ways to define and redefine concentration, I think that constantly doing so is missing the point. That Izzet core is dominating Modern to an extreme degree. Wizards has declared that they have no intention in doing anything for the time being, so players will either need to join in or adapt. Given history, I expect the former to be the more popular choice.

It Is What It Is

For better or worse, this not-so-secretly stale format is the Modern that is going to prevail for the time being. The next opportunity for disruption and a change to the status quo will be the release of March of the Machines on April 21. After that, I expect Wizards to reevaluate their position.

Adam Plays Magic: Standard Esper Legends

Posted on by Adam Cohen

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This week Adam Plays Magic is legen—wait for it—dary, with Standard Esper Legends. This archetype put three players in the top 8 of of the European Championship in Naples over the weekend, including @ToffelMTG whose second-place list we've taken for a spin. The deck utilizes disruptive creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Skrelv, Defector Mite, and Dennick, Pious Apprentice // Dennick, Pious Apparition to put the opponent on the back foot and throw off their curve. Then, Raffine, Scheming Seer and Adeline, Resplendent Cathar use these go-wide small creatures into very tall, game-winning threats.

What I Like

Each card in this deck is individually powerful but they also work well together. For example, Raffine's connive triggers work alongside Sheoldred, the Apocalypse to gain massive swaths of life to lock out aggressive opponents. It also helps to stick Dennick in the graveyard to bring it back for its disturb cost. With all of these legendary creatures, Otawara, Soaring City, Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire, and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire have their activation costs reduced to as little as one mana. This makes their effects much more efficient and makes it harder for the opponent to play around.

Additionally, Plaza of Heroes does a ton of work as an untapped five-color land and really ties the deck together. Casting pip-intensive spells like Dennick into Adeline into Sheoldred is surprisingly reliable thanks to Plaza. Later in the game, Plaza is an on-board trick that protects the deck's high-impact creatures by giving hexproof and indestructible.

I'm also a big fan of Razorlash Transmogrant in Standard since so many players are utilizing three-color mana bases. It's able to return to play from the graveyard for just two mana against top decks like Grixis Midrange, weakening the impact of opposing edict effects from Liliana of the Veils and Invoke Despairs.

Speaking of Grixis, Dennick's graveyard protection stops the triggered ability from Corpse Appraiser and Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton, weakening those main threats. Similarly, Dennick stops reanimator strategies from cheating Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Titan of Industry into play. That's a lot of practical use for a two-drop!

What I Dislike

There isn't much to complain about with this deck. It runs smoothly and consistently. If I had to pick something, it would be that the deck's accommodations for Thalia prevent it from playing some of the stronger noncreature spells in the format like The Wandering Emperor and Make Disappear.

Given that each creature is legendary, there is a risk of drawing too many copies of any individual card since the legend rule will prevent them from being deployed to further grow the player's board presence. However, given the card selection of Raffine and the kill-on-sight nature of Adeline and Sheoldred, it makes sense to have backup copies ready.

The Deck

Standard Esper Legends by Thoralf Severin

Creatures

4 Skrelv, Defector Mite
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
4 Dennick, Pious Apprentice // Dennick, Pious Apparition
4 Raffine, Scheming Seer
3 Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
1 Ludevic, Necrogenius // Olag, Ludevic's Hubris
2 Razorlash Transmogrant

Spells

2 Go for the Throat

Enchantments

4 Wedding Announcement // Wedding Festivity

Lands

3 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
3 Otawara, Soaring City
2 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
4 Plaza of Heroes
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Shattered Sanctum

Sideboard

4 Cut Down
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Go for the Throat
2 Malicious Malfunction
2 Destroy Evil
3 Loran of the Third Path

End Step

Esper Legends is a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with in Standard. Given how prevalent it was in the European Championship, I fully expect its popularity to rise. With "team up" legends confirmed for the upcoming March of the Machine set, I'm certain this deck will receive even more powerful additions and remain a top dog in the format. There are also many strong legends in the format that didn't make Thoralf's list but that did show up in other builds like Gabriel Nassif's. The Raven Man and Gix, Yawgmoth's Praetor especially seem great in the archetype. There are so many configurations this deck can take going forward, I can't wait to help iterate on it.

As always, you can keep up with me and my testing by following me on Twitch and Twitter. I'll see you all next time.

On the Decision to Sell Out of Magic

Posted on by Sigmund Ausfresser

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I have been an active participant in the Magic Twitter community for many years now. In fact, Twitter likes to remind me of this once a year when I hit my anniversary date, whenever that is. Over the years, the site has become a powerful tool to help me reach tons of players all at once, building up a network of friendly players across the globe.

One such bond I forged a long time ago is with fellow Magic player Justin (@strider_1978)… or should I say, ex-Magic player? Check out this momentous tweet I stumbled upon over the weekend:

Justin is a long-time player, enjoying the game for nearly 30 years! Life circumstances and varying priorities contributed to his decision to sell out.

My first reaction to this tweet surprised me. I was jealous.

The Chase Is Over

This is a direct quote from Justin’s follow-up tweet. “Yes sir. I am done. The chase is over.”

Wow. This is such a profound tweet, and it’s one that really resonates. The way Magic is designed, there is always another card you’re looking for, another piece for the deck, another treasure to complete a collection, and another nostalgic piece of cardboard to remind us of our childhood. The pursuit is never-ending, part of the game since day one when Richard Garfield put the “collectible” in this collectible card game.

For example, Justin’s white whale in Magic was a Juzam Djinn. For years he was in active pursuit of an affordable copy—unfortunately, as the value of his cards climbed, so did the price of that pesky Juzam!

There was an error retrieving a chart for Juzam Djinn

When Justin made the decision to sell his collection, he abandoned the lifelong, insatiable pursuit.

Just like that, the tie is severed. “It was a huge weight off my shoulders,” followed Justin when I messaged him directly about his decision. He went on to admit, “Don’t get me wrong. It was kind of tough.” The decision to sell everything wasn’t taken lightly, but overall, he’s happy with the decision.

I look at this sense of relief and I can’t help but picture what it would feel like for me. I don’t think I’d ever quit Magic altogether, but the prospect of selling everything but for a single deck and/or binder of cards is attractive for a number of reasons. Let me count the ways…

Top Five Reasons to Sell Out of Magic

#5 Freeing up Space (physical and mental)

By itself, a single Magic card takes up virtually no volume of space. Add stacks of cards, deck boxes, binders, dice, tokens, playmats, and an array of other accessories related to the game, and suddenly you have a ton of “stuff” filling up your closet. Selling out of Magic means you can rid yourself of all these items, leaving you with a tidier home and more shelf space in the process.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Cold Storage

Beyond the physical, it’s also a relief to free up mental space. For example, if you’re spending time thinking about decks to build and adjust, cards you may want to pick up, cards you are actively trying to sell, etc., you are spending valuable mental energy on this game. In addition, I always monitor shipments of cards (to and from me) to ensure they aren’t lost by USPS—when you’re finished with Magic, these are minor worries and thoughts that no longer demand mental energy.

#4 Time

Magic is an extremely time-consuming game! Whether your favorite way of engaging is playing on Arena, playing against friends at the kitchen table, organizing and sorting through your collection, or buying and selling cards—hours can be sunk into this game before you even realize it.

Of course, if we’re having fun engaging in these Magic-related activities, then it’s all worth it. However, there is something to be said about the opportunity cost associated with all this time we’re spending. For example, as I write this article my two kids are playing nicely in the other room. I’m thrilled they’re getting along for once, but this is an opportunity to bond that I’m eschewing in favor of writing this article.

I sometimes wonder how much time I’d have back in my life if I were to leave Magic altogether. Sure, I love what I do in this game, but am I missing out on other life experiences without even realizing it? Are you?

#3 Money

Some say “time is money,” but in this case I am strictly referring to the financial value and opportunity cost associated with this card game. Take a step back for a moment and consider the approximate value of your collection. Next, think about what else that kind of money could help you buy. Whether your collection’s value is $100 and could pay for your next week’s grocery bill, or it’s $100,000 and you could pay off your mortgage with the money, there is always an opportunity cost associated with owning a Magic collection.

My primary motivation for engaging in Magic finance remains steadfast: saving money for my kids’ college educations. I’ve been completely transparent about this in the past—when there came a time when I could sell out of my cards to meet my college fund goals, I would do it. I’m nearly there today, and I’ve already begun selling much of the value from my collection as a result.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Black Lotus

If you are juggling multiple priorities in life, make sure you are actively deciding to invest so much money in this card game, rather than passively doing it (by ignoring card values as they fluctuate over time). You may be surprised at the alternatives you could be using that money towards when you stop and consider it more seriously. Also, there’s the side benefit of not having so much money in cardboard sitting in your basement. I no longer dread the idea of having a basement flood or other catastrophic event wiping out a chunk of my net worth.

#2 Ending the Grind

I participate in a group that focuses on mindfulness at work. One of the concepts I appreciate most is the idea of “non-striving.” Too often I hear my inner voice declaring, “I’ll be happy when…” In other words, there’s always a next step, or a goal, that I am working towards in order to feel more fulfilled.

Do you know what I realized when it comes to Magic? I’m never fulfilled. No matter which cards I buy, what deck I build, or what collection I complete, there is always a new objective to work towards. On the one hand, that may give me a feeling of purpose and drive. On the other hand, the constant pursuit feels Sisyphean in a way.

Sisyphus is a character from Greek mythology whose punishment for cheating the gods was to have to push a round boulder up a hill for eternity. As he nears the top, the boulder rolls all the way back down the hill, forcing Sisyphus to start over again. That’s very much like my experience collecting Magic cards. Every time I finish some minor quest, I barely celebrate before I shift focus to the next card I “need” for my collection. I always tell myself “I’ll be happy when I finish this next goal” only to find a new card I would love to buy.

The grind is perpetual, time-consuming, and leaves me with a hollow feeling. Abandoning the lifelong pursuit is akin to letting the boulder fall back down the hill, and then walking away. It’s no wonder my friend Justin used the term “relief” when he described his feeling about selling out of Magic.

#1 Shifting Life Priorities

In addition to ending the grind, Justin cited another significant factor that led to his decision to sell out of Magic.

“There is an emotional attachment to cards from a younger time in a person’s life. Memories. Good times. Good people. A totally different kind of life, or world, back then as opposed to now. Even the community is a lot different. We were once outcasts. The nerds. The losers. Now it’s very mainstream…”

Justin reminisces about a different time—the mid-1990s to be more precise. I can relate to this sentiment. I remember what Magic was like when I started playing in 1997. The game wasn’t well known to most kids in school. To play Magic was to be a nerd, and this was something you kept within your small circle of friends. You didn’t advertise that you played this game.

Justin looks back on that time period with nostalgic fondness, and I can understand why. The game looks very different now than it did back in 1997. It’s not that it’s significantly better or worse. It’s just different.

In addition to the game’s evolution, we as people have also grown and changed over the years. You could say this aging process can cause us to “grow out of Magic.” Life changes, our circle of friends changes, and as a result, our priorities change. Instead of leaning on Magic as a way to connect with friends in a society where we are social outcasts, we are now adults raising kids, working full-time jobs, and navigating through life. Magic is still a fun game, but it isn’t the anchor it once was while we were floating adrift in life.

It's perfectly reasonable to acknowledge this evolution and respond in the way Justin did.

Wrapping It Up

There’s nothing wrong with having Magic be a lifelong pursuit. I pass zero judgment on anyone who is wholly committed to this game. I know of many Old School players in particular who declare that they will never sell their cards, and that they’ll enjoy playing Magic their entire life.

My intent this week is merely to shed light on the other side of the coin. The decision to quit Magic is not one to be taken lightly, especially when there are significant financial implications. There can be a number of reasons it makes perfect sense to sell out of the game, whether it be motivated by time, money, or simply an acknowledgment that Magic is a perpetual grind with no end.

As for my friend Justin, I suspect he’s not going to own zero Magic cards forever. He already confided, “I am gonna pick up some cheap revised for a white and black deck, so I can still play when I do meet some of y’all!” He’s already finding a new way to stay involved in the game—I did something similar after I sold my Old School decks. I immediately built a budget friendly Erhnam and Burn ‘em deck, rocking white-bordered Revised and Chronicles through and through.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Erhnam Djinn

Perhaps that is the best reason of all to quit Magic. It allows us to reconsider what we truly want out of the game. After all the finance, competitiveness, and completionism are stripped from the game, what remains is what we truly seek from it. For Justin, it’s simply a reason to meet friends and enjoy a casual game. It took him a major decision to sell out in order to get back in touch with what made the game special to him.

Would you have the same courage? What would you do with Magic if you were to sell all your cards and start at zero again? Perhaps the answer to this question is what would truly make you happy when it comes to engagement with Magic: the Gathering.

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Sigmund Ausfresser

Sigmund first started playing Magic when Visions was the newest set, back in 1997. Things were simpler back then. After playing casual Magic for about ten years, he tried his hand at competitive play. It took about two years before Sigmund starting taking down drafts. Since then, he moved his focus towards Legacy and MTG finance. Now that he's married and works full-time, Sigmund enjoys the game by reading up on trends and using this knowledge in buying/selling cards.

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Posted in Finance, Old School Magic, Selling, Timeless Info, TwitterTagged , , , 1 Comment on On the Decision to Sell Out of Magic

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Evolutions in Phyrexia: All Will Be One Limited

Posted on by Robert Genuario

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In the first weeks of Phyrexia: All Will Be One (ONE), we identified red and white as the best colors. Green, black, and blue followed, in approximately that order. The format was labeled one of the most aggressive of all time, and if you didn't have a play by turn two, you were probably losing. None of this has changed.

On a smaller level, however, things seem to be evolving. Last week's article on blue was a reaction to that. Once the color was labeled untouchable, we recognized we could cherry-pick its best cards. However, with less eyes on blue, Naya is getting crowded. In the early weeks of the format, we just wanted to be red and white. Toxic, oil, artifacts, whatever. Red decks got copies of Hexgold Slash and Chimney Rabble on the wheel. White decks had access to so many aggressive cards that toxic felt like just a bonus. Now, these colors are more contested. Which means Naya drafters (and most of the time, we should be Naya drafters) will have a tougher time.

Game Plan for Naya

The recipe for success in the early days of ONE was simple. Just be red and/or white. This deck wanted to be toxic enough to enable its corrupted synergies, but it didn't really have the means to win through toxic. This is an old-fashioned aggro deck.

7-1 RW Aggro

Creatures

3 Crawling Chorus
1 Sinew Dancer
1 Bladed Ambassador
2 Incisor Glider
3 Indoctrination Attendant
3 Basilica Shepherd

Sorceries

1 Hazardous Blast

Instant

2 Charge of the Mites
2 Volt Charge

Artifact

1 Prosthetic Injector
1 Barbed Batterfist
1 Urabrask's Forge

Enchantment

3 Planar Disruption

Lands

1 The Fair Basilica
1 Terramorphic Expanse
8 Plains
6 Mountain

Despite the number of toxic creatures in this deck, and my affinity for Prosthetic Injector in the early stages of the format, this deck isn't really a Toxic deck. It was toxic enough to enable corrupted, but hardly had a chance at getting opponents to ten poison. More often than not, the Basilica Shepherds hit like the Phantom Monsters they are and attacked for lethal.

If we can still pile up strong red and white cards, we should. However, it's less likely that this option will be available to us now that the format has adapted to the disproportionate strength of Naya. If Naya decks are going to evolve, they need to maximize the synergies of the scripted archetypes.

Naya in the New World

In a world where we can't get expect to see pack after pack of powerful cards in red, white, and green, we need to get more out of the synergy cards. Goldwarden's Helm and Bladegraft Aspirant are cards I wasn't interested in during the early weeks of the format. Now we should look to pick them up if we're heading into the RW equipment deck.

7-1 RW For Mirrodin

Creatures

1 Vindictive Flamestoker
1 Axiom Engraver
2 Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden
1 Shrapnel Slinger
2 Mandible Justiciar
1 Annex Sentry
1 Bladegraft Aspirant
1 Chimney Rabble
1 Resistance Skywarden

Instant

1 Hexgold Slash
1 Charge of the Mites
1 Volt Charge

Artifact

2 Veil of Assimilation
1 Barbed Batterfist
2 Bladehold War-Whip
2 Goldwarden's Helm
1 Mirran Bardiche

Lands

1 The Autonomous Furnace
8 Plains
8 Mountain

Veil of Assimilation was a card that looked like a dud to me. The card is too reliant on synergies and didn't impact the board. In this deck, the card was a house.

If it looks like we're going to lean into an artifact subtheme, we can make those mediocre three drops better. While we should still snag a late Chimney Rabble or Hexgold Slash if we see it, the flow of red cards has slowed to a trickle. Don't be afraid to lean into those synergy cards early. Optimizing our presence in a specific archetype, specifically the red and white ones, should be a priority.

Big Oil vs. Oil Slick Aggro

RG Oil is probably still the best deck in the format when it comes together (RW Equipment and White Toxic are also in the discussion). However, the best RG Oil decks rely on premium cards up and down the curve.

We want some amount of one-drops, all of which are good to great. We want Axiom Engraver and Barbed Batterfist, some of the best two-drops in the format. At three, we're hoping for a Contagious Vorrac, but we're willing to settle. Then we top our curve with premium options at four and five. Furnace Strider, Lattice-Blade Mantis, Oil-Gorger Troll, and Chimney Rabble are all excellent.

That deck is basically a composite of the format's best commons. When we mix in the premium removal, and maybe the best uncommon in the set in Cinderslash Ravager, there's no question as to why this deck performed so well. Big Oil is a juggernaut, but is it sustainable?

As we react to restricted availability, we need to rely on synergy. Free From Flesh always felt like a bad Blazing Crescendo, but the most aggressive decks might prefer the one-mana trick. Using it precombat to boost a Kuldotha Cackler or to pre-pay for the Forgehammer Centurion trigger can accelerate the oil decks. While Big Oil is still better, Oil Slick is a potent off-ramp for many of the strong red cards, especially the multiple one-drops.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Free From Flesh

We're not seeing an endless string of powerful red cards these days. We need to know when our red decks should pivot into an even more aggressive build. This audible can salvage a mediocre RG pile and lead us into the kind of lean, aggressive deck that thrives in this format.

You Come to a Fork in the Road

White has three strong common two-drops. In a perfect world, we know what our deck is going to look like before we have to make this decision.

Clearly, Mandible Justiciar performs better in artifact decks, whereas Duelist of Deep Faith is an option for toxic decks. Incisor Glider is great if we can reliably corrupt our opponents, but early in the draft, this card is a distant third choice.

Mandible Justiciar has a slightly better GIH WR% and OH WR%. Every deck in this format wants to gain life. Still, between the two, we should prioritize the Duelist. Certainly, both cards have decks they'll be good in. But knowing the importance of premium two-drops in toxic decks makes this card a more valuable early pick. While we're willing to include both creatures in either deck, not having good toxic two-drops in an otherwise strong Toxic deck is a disaster.

While Mandible Justiciar might be a better card, I'm not sure that it is a more valuable one. The toxic decks need to get through that toxic damage early. The first few hits are the most important, and Duelist of Deep Faith is more than up to the task.

Better vs. More Valuable

By most metrics, Annex Sentry is the best uncommon in the set. It has synergies with toxic and artifacts, white's two overlapping themes. It's a Fiend hunter in what's arguably the format's best color. And it boasts the highest GIH WR% and highest IWD% according to 17lands.

However, I'm not sure that it's the most valuable. Cinderslash Ravager has a strong claim to this throne, as does Bladehold War-Whip. Both are incredibly powerful cards that elevate their archetypes, but being gold comes with limitations.

In sports, they often award the MVP based on narratives and other unclear criteria. What constitutes value? And to whom must this card be valuable? With that being said, I'd like to debut an extremely unpopular opinion:

Bilious Skulldweller is the format's most valuable uncommon.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Bilious Skulldweller

While we shouldn't take this card over Annex Sentry, it provides an unmatched opportunity for a strategy (admittedly a weak one) to exert its gameplan. Skulldweller allows Black Toxic to get their first poison damage in the early stages of the game. Unlike White Toxic, black decks rely on proliferate, and don't have the likes of Flensing Raptor, Crawling Chorus, or Duelist of Deep Faith to keep the pressure up. Black's next best applicant for this job is Pestilent Syphoner, which could be described as a necessary evil. In truth, the diminutive flyer is better classified as a liability.

Bilious Skulldweller unlocks an entire color in a way no other uncommon does. That is my reasoning for crowning this unassuming critter, despite its admittedly dubious 17lands stats.

Why "Valuable" Matters

Regardless of how you feel about Billious Skulldweller, as we look towards synergies, we should factor the value of a card over its raw power. This is not a new concept, but as this format matures, it becomes more important to view things through this lens. While last week we talked about cherry-picking blue, the Naya colors are ransacked by the middle of the pack. Therefore, as we select cards lower on our tier lists, we need to make sure we're creating a shell that can optimize our 20th-23rd inclusions.

As we're drafting, that means asking ourselves, "what does this deck do?" and "what does this card do for my deck?" These questions help us build more synergistic decks and prioritize how cards will support our overarching gameplan, especially as we find homes in contested colors. Yes, sometimes the draft will offer us untold riches and a clear path through two colors, but more often than not we're going to have to put forethought into our picks to end up in a strong position.

This is why we should take Duelist of Deep Faith over Mandible Justiciar early on. Conversely, we still shouldn't take Free From Flesh over Blazing Crescendo. While the one-mana trick might be better in some versions of the oil deck, it's unlikely to overpower the free card from Blazing Crescendo on average. Value and power might fluctuate in the eyes of a given drafter, but as our colors become more contested, small synergistic choices can mean the difference between flopping and trophying.

March ’23 Metagame Analysis: Innovation Attempts

Posted on by David Ernenwein

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The overwhelming vibe I get from February's data is stability. Players have been trying to disrupt the metagame's equilibrium, but like swinging a pendulum, it just keeps returning to its resting position. These new decks have promise, and I hope they survive to add needed variety to Modern's metagame. However, I have doubts that they'll have any impact on the metagame's equilibrium ahead of March of the Machines (MOM).

The Churn That Wasn't

The first thing to deal with is Phyrexia: All Will be One's impact, or rather lack thereof. Don't get me wrong, players are trying to adopt the new cards, and some have definitely made it into the regular Modern rotation. It just hasn't resulted in the churn that I expected it would in January. The main problem seems to be that, once again, the cards that are best in Modern are best in existing decks.

There was an error retrieving a chart for The Mycosynth Gardens

The Phyrexia card that's seen the most play, by a very long margin, is The Mycosynth Gardens. It naturally fit into Amulet Titan and has been universally adopted as a 3-4-of. I know that other decks were floated as homes for Gardens, but they're not really working out. Gardens is perfect for Titan because it's cheap to copy Amulet of Vigor, and more Amulets allows for more broken starts. I'm told by actual Amulet players that Garden doesn't make the deck that much better, as switching other lands for Gardens made the mana somewhat unstable, but being more broken makes up for instability.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Atraxa, Grand Unifier

After Gardens, the most played Phyrexia card is Minor Misstep, and that's entirely thanks to UR Murktide's prevalence. Misstep is not universal, but many Murktide players are running one or two main as anti-mirror cards. Some other decks are also running one or two as anti-Murktide cards. After that, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines and Atraxa, Grand Unifier see some play, the former alongside Omnath, Locus of Creation and the latter in Indomitable Creativity lists and rarely elsewhere. Many niche cards, but nothing redefining.

Modern, Vaccinated

Significantly, and despite my concern, Venerated Rotpriest hasn't made much outside of Standard. This is not for lack of effort. There are a number of Storm lists floating around, and every Infect list I recorded in the data included Rotpriest, seemingly for the reasons I speculated on in my original article. That said, the fact that it's been a month since Rotpriest became legal, plus the extra time from the leak, and there's been no breakout deck suggests that there's no actual danger.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Venerated Rotpriest

However, I'm not sounding the all-clear yet. Remember, it has proven surprisingly hard to innovate in settled metagames. Rotpriest may be more the victim of inertia than a lack of viability. Its home is also in two decks that have stigma associated in playing with them, Infect and Storm. Storm is a deck that traditionally turns off many players and players really hate getting got by Infect, which provides social pressure against playing them.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Grapeshot

Therefore, given the fact that decks running Rotpriest can win and the test decks I've seen perform reasonably well (on video, anyway) I'm sticking to my original assessment. Rotpriest is an inherently dangerous card, but a combination of metagame forces and social pressure are keeping it out. It may take a metagame shift or new printing to overcome the inertia, but there is certainly a Modern where Rotpriest is a player. Stay vigilant.

Humans Returning?

For the first time in a while, Humans made the Tier list. It's the bottom of Tier 3, but that's still a significant achievement for a deck that fell completely out of the metagame after once being the best deck in Modern. This happened thanks to the emergence of the Mono-White Humans list running Chancellor of the Annex and Shining Shoal I highlighted last week. It's still putting up enough results to potentially make March's tier list, but I don't think it will actually make it.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Chancellor of the Annex

I mentioned that I like the idea of the deck far more than the reality, and nothing in the past week has changed my mind. When everything lines up correctly, the deck is beautiful. An opening curve of revealed Chancellor into Esper Sentinel and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is crushing agianst Murktide. Having Chancellor to pitch to Shoal targeting Murktide Regent to close out the game is just gravy. The problem is that for each time things line up like that, there are three where Chancellor is drawn late, Shoal is worthless, and the deck is too anemic to compete. Which has been many streamers' experience too.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Shining Shoal

Consequently, I don't see a long future for this particular deck. However, there's definitely something to it, and a slightly different take could make the deck stick. I'm tooling around with a version that cuts the situational Shoals for more ways to discard Chancellor for value. It's definitely not good, but there's potential, so keep an eye on Humans. They always seem to sneak back into viability.

Dam Repaired

Underworld Breach was the Card of the Month in January. It was winning everywhere, and looked to be taking over Modern. That didn't happen in February. Jeskai Value Breach was a Tier 2 deck and no other version made the list. I recorded multiple version in the data, but only Value hit the threshold. Considering that I said that the upward trend we saw would continue, what went wrong?

There was an error retrieving a chart for Underworld Breach

The first thing to remember is that it's impossible to know when or if the sheen on The Shiny New Thing will tarnish. Every time some new exciting take on an existing deck comes out, there's a rush to adopt it followed by a crash. Players realize that either they don't like the different play style, or that it requires different skills than they expected, and interest wanes.

There's also the normal resistance of "isn't this just X, but worse?" That stigma isn't always justified, but it certainly dampens any momentum the deck was building. This certainly played a role as I saw numerous takes on Twitter saying that Breach decks are just Murktide, but worse.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Murktide Regent

There's also the fact that once opponents understood what was going on, the Breach decks became easier to beat than expected. It doesn't appear to me that there's more graveyard hate seeing play, despite my entreaties to the contrary. Instead, players have gotten smarter about employing their hate. They're also playing to minimize the impact of the Breach. Thus, the deck fell off. I expect Value Breach to remain in the mix, but it's up in the air for other versions.

About the Non-Banning

All that said, the really big development is that on Monday, Legacy saw a significant ban and Modern didn't. This isn't entirely surprising, as Wizards is often resistant to bannings unless forced. What's really got a bee in my bonnet (as evidenced by what I said on Wednesday) is that Wizards says that Murktide's lead on the other decks isn't large enough to warrant action. Given all the evidence I have, I can't fathom how they could genuinely believe that statement. However, they obviously do enough to push the line, and this has metagame and financial implications.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Expressive Iteration

Paper is another matter, and I won't be considering it here. To the best of my knowledge, Wizards doesn't make events report decks to them. Thus, they'd only know what individual organizers choose to make public, just like me. Wizards does organize events and often requires decklists, so they can know about those events, but no others. Therefore, if they know more about the paper metagame than me, it isn't much more.

The Statistical Issue

I don't have all the data that Daybreak and therefore Wizards has about the Magic Online (MTGO) metagame. I can only work with the publicly available data on the winning decks from Premier events. They have access exactly what decks enter every event and how they perform from all the Premier events and Leagues. They can know exactly what is actually going on, while I can only guess, and therefore they could be right that outside of the top of Premier events Murktide doesn't show up that much.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Fury

However, for that to be the case requires the data to reflect something that seems statistically unlikely. The primary issue is that as the data set increases, the threshold for statistical significance shrinks as a percentage of the population. With a data set of 100 results, the threshold for statistical significance is about 20 negative responses, or 20% deviation. As the set population rises, the needed percentage falls.

Follow the Numbers

The data I have available puts Murktide over Rakdos Scam on MTGO by 6.85%. Given the population of 876 decks, this is a statistically significant deviation, enough to designate Murktide as an outlier above and outlier. For this not to be the case in the totality of the data requires that Murktide shows up at a lower percentage outside of Premier event results. This would mean that players aren't testing out their Murktide lists in Leagues and losing players aren't playing Murktide in the Premier events. Both circumstances are possible, but do seem unlikely.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Grief

It then requires that this drop off shrinks the gap by a significant amount. To shrink the gap requires that Murktide shows up in the overall data at a rate lower than 15.87%. In fact, it would need to be at a rate lower than Scam's 9.02% to actually close the gap between them. Even if that happened, the two decks would still be statistical outliers over Hammer Time. All these things are possible, but for it all to happen together seems unlikely and indeed implausible. Thus, I think Wizards is obfuscating.

Monkey on Our Back

Why would Wizards mislead us on Murktide? Every corporation has an incentive to deceive customers for financial gain, but there's a known financial reason for Wizards to avoid taking action. Specifically, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is being reprinted on March of the Machines' bonus sheet. He was, in fact, used as part of the announcement of said bonus sheet. The minute I saw that, I knew that there'd be no Modern ban anytime soon. Wizards isn't going to ban Ragavan if it might impact them selling MOM packs. They're just not, especially when the only format to (realistically) play him in is Modern.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

Honestly, if Wizards had left it at that, I I'd be fine. They're not going to ban something they're reprinting before it's out, the company has to make money. I get it and can accept that reality. However, once you start saying that there's no need for action based on something that contradicts the visible evidence, I have a problem. That feels like deliberate misdirection and deflection, and I take it as an insult to player intelligence.

Stability Ahead

Thus, given Modern's resistance to organic change over the past year and Wizards being unwilling to ban anything until sometime after MOM, it is safe to assume that Modern will continue to remain as it is for the foreseeable future. Murktide will continue to dominate Modern alongside Scam, Hammer, and Creativity. Therefore, players need to adapt and prepare accordingly.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Tarmogoyf

On the financial side, Ragavan getting reprinted is an opportunity. This is likely to be a Tarmogoyf situation, and the increased supply will stimulate additional demand. I don't know how much of an increase to expect, but if players pull a Ragavan, they'll want to build a deck around him. Therefore, there should be brisk business in the rest of the cards for Murktide, Breach, and other Ragavan decks on the horizon. I'd start building inventory with that in mind.

What Will Be

Modern is in a highly stable period, and unless there's something truly impressive in MOM, it will remain so. The currently viable decks have proven resilient to disruption. We all need to settle in and wait.

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