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November ’22 Metagame Analysis: Gradual Shifting

Posted on by David Ernenwein

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Greeting QS Insiders. It's now time for me to dive into the data I presented on Wednesday and also discuss the observations that aren't visible in the data. November is going to be a bit odd in this regard as the observable data doesn't look dramatically different from October. However, that is a bit deceptive, and there's a lot going on beneath the surface. Modern is seeing a burst of brewing which might be a flash in the pan, or it could really turn into something. If it can break through the established players, which is looking... potentially possible. With an asterisk.

The Meta Shift That Wasn't

The first thing to address is the question posed by my previous analysis article in October: what effect will The Brothers' War have on Modern? I can now say that the answer is almost none. It's rather anti-climactic, but very few cards have made it into Modern decks at all and none have had any measurable metagame impact. Haywire Mite has seen the most play, as it's in pretty much every Urza's Saga deck which can produce green mana. It even inspired an attempt to make Insect Tribal a deck. The deck has (many) more legs than I'd expected, but hasn't really done anything in the wider metagame.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Haywire Mite

Outside of Mite, both The Stone Brain and Loran of the Third Path are seeing sideboard play. However, where Loran is seeing more play than I expected, Brain is seeing a lot less. Despite certain expectations, Prison Tron did not see a persistent surge of play, nor did it put up results. As expected, it was popular for the first weekend, then immediately fell off.

Brain does not fix any flaws in the deck. It wasn't good before BRO, and Brain doesn't move the needle enough to change anything. Bitter Reunion is still seeing some niche play as a supplement to Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.

Thinking With Portal

Which isn't to say that BRO might not eventually shake up Modern. There were also expectations for Portal to Phyrexia, both on its own and alongside Shape Anew. As of this moment, those expectations have not been met. There have been dedicated combo decks around the card, but they didn't put any results into my data. There have been some 4-Color Control lists that include the combo, but the current evidence suggests that their success is more down to the rest of the list than the combo itself. In which case, Indomitable Creativity would be better.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Portal to Phyrexia

That said, there is potential here. Portal is quite expensive, but has two very powerful effects. The current lists all look too cute and/or janky to me, which explains why they're not currently working. With some more refinement, I could see this becoming a Splinter Twin-esqe combo for Modern control decks. However, there is a lot of tension and clunk to work out first.

The Wildcard

On that note, Sarinth Steelseeker has seen unexpected play. Everyone can thank aspiringspike for that; he's single-handedly revived interest in the Hell's Kitchen deck by incorporating Steelseeker. That deck didn't last because unless (deep breath) Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar hits play, the critical central engine does nothing. Even when the engine is going, the rest of the deck proved too anemic to cope. Spike has fixed this by adding Wrenn and Six, because adding good cards is always a good move, which makes Saga stronger.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Sarinth Steelseeker

More pertinently, he added Steelseeker, giving the food engine something to do besides fuel The Unpronounceable One. With Steelseeker, every food is an opportunity to rip though the deck and find the few good cards. This has increased the consistency and therefore the power.

However, it's not enough. Spike and all the other Food players did abysmally in the Modern Showcase Qualifier. Food remains a fringe deck, but I now believe that Steelseeker does have untapped potential. How it can be captured is anyone's guess at this point.

The Three-Outlier Metagame

From the hypothetical to the actual, the metagame is beginning to split between the online and paper metagame. Where the online metagame is essentially a continuation of pre-BRO trends, the paper metagame is going another way. It's not exactly rejecting the online trends, but it's not following them either. The reasons for this at the moment are transitory and this could all be moot by the next metagame update. Or there could be a major change in the winds incoming.

All Those Outliers

Addressing the elephant in the room, Magic Online (MTGO) not only produced three statistical outliers, but they're also outliers by a significant margin. Such a margin that I didn't both with my usual battery of statistical tests because the result was obvious. The overall metagame is being inexorably twisted around the pillars of UR Murktide, Rakdos Scam, and Hammer Time. It's not because they're so much more powerful than other decks, as evidenced by their winrates. Rather, these decks take up so much of the metagame that every other deck must be ready for them.

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

The question then becomes how and why this has happened. The how is straightforward: they show up a lot. Specifically, these three decks show up to an inordinate amount in the Challenges. While Hammer and Murktide do make ok showings in the Preliminaries, they really turn out for the Challenges. Scam takes this to an extreme, rarely showing up in smaller events and doing exceptionally well in the big ones. This is literally driving out the other decks, leaving only the three outliers.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Sigarda's Aid

The why is more complicated. No outlier deck has any particular natural advantage over the others, and each deck has a high enough power level to take any deck on. Murktide has been an enigma all year, being a deck that is absolutely everywhere despite an average win rate. Hammer and Scam are strong decks made outlier strong by the potential for free wins. Hammer can outright win on turn 2 several ways with a god draw. Scam can't outright win early, but it does feel that way when it evokes Grief into Feign Death on turn one. These lines negate some of each deck's weaknesses and make them major metagame players.

The Consequence

While neither deck being extremely popular is a problem on its own, the context and implications are more harrowing. Just look at the rest of the tier chart; the outliers account for over a third of the total results, and exceed their nearest competition by nearly 50% at minimum. Every other deck has cards in their sideboards (at minimum) specifically for the three outliers. Quite literally, all other competition is being crowded out.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Murktide Regent

When the only consistent outlier was Murktide, this wasn't really a problem. On its own, Murktide was never more than ~13% of Modern, which left plenty of room for other players. Even when it was joined by other decks, they accounted for less than 25% of Modern. This is damning by faint praise, but that's pretty typical for Tier 1 decks. However, the concentration in November is troubling. If it is sustained, there may need to be action to force the online metagame to diversify.

The Counterpoint

Such action would be unfortunate. The paper metagame looks very healthy. November is the second consecutive month without any outliers. It's also the first month since April where Murktide is not the top deck in paper. It is possible that this represents a genuine change in player taste and thus the metagame. It is also possible that it's a function of Modern being out of the spotlight, replaced by Pioneer. I have no way of knowing.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Colossus Hammer

In fact, looking through the paper results (and online, to an extent) reveals a metagame that is very diverse both in terms of individual decks and strategy. The midrange and 4-Color decks are far less prevalent in paper than online, and there are combo decks doing well in the higher portion of the tier list. The MTGO results have that too, but more of them are sneaking in at the bottom of Tier 3. Therefore, they only made the list thanks to my accounting for outliers.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Underworld Breach

Outside of the warp on MTGO, Modern doesn't look like it needs intervention. There are things that could be improved, but the metagame is generally fulfilling the health criteria. The MTGO warp is the only visible problem, and that's mostly down to player tastes. It would be shame to ruin it for everyone because MTGO chases its own tail, but doing so might be the only way to fix that meta.

Year-End Outlook

What this means for the financially minded out there is unclear. On the face of things, the Modern metagame status quo will remain until at least January. Whether the worrying aspects will be sustained as well is impossible to say, but I don't believe that we'll see anything truly new to shake things up without Wizards intervening before Phyrexia: All Will Be One.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Urza's Saga

Of course, this is tempered by it now being December, a month when competitive Magic traditionally takes a breather. Prices always fall and so do sales. The traditional advice is that this is the time to pick up staples on the cheap and build inventory for the coming year.

While competitive Magic isn't what it once was, there is a new Modern tournament series coming to the US West Coast in 2023. The east has been well-served by both Star City Games and NRG, but there's never been anything like them in the west. This new series, limited though it will be, will drive demand for Modern staples in 2023. Thus, the old advice is still good.

That Controversy

Of course, I can't get away with any finance piece without mentioning all the controversy over Hasbro's actions vis-a-vis Magic, which the QS team has also weighed in on in article form. With the Magic 30 packs apparently failing to sell and Hasbro announcing that it intends to continue and expand its current policies, the financial Magic world is roiling. I don't need to reiterate to the Insiders the conversations happening on the QS Discord over this debacle. The thing is, I'd imagine that everyone reading this has already made up their minds about what they feel about everything, and nothing I say will change your mind about MTG finance in the near future.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Gifts Ungiven

Instead, let me remind everyone of one fact: Magic is the best-selling, most popular trading card game. Period. The game itself isn't going anywhere. The fact that a new tournament series is coming next year is proof of that. For those looking to make money buying and selling cards, that door will always be open. It is those seeking to hold cards as long-term investment opportunities that are affected. I've always been addressing everyone here as players looking to move cards and not investment types, and for those people the end of 2022 should be business as usual, with improved business conditions on the horizon.

Here's to the End

The holiday season is upon us and will be done when next I write this article. I hope everyone has a joyous season of whatever you celebrate and may your purchases be low and sales high. See all you Insiders in the new year!

3 Great Gifts (and One Awful) for Your Magic Player

Posted on by Joe Mauri

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Happy holidays! 'Tis the season for giving gifts and receiving awesome Magic stuff. However, there is now more product than ever! What gifts are great versus bland? Here are some ideas that will spark joy for your favorite Magic player or even yourself. Done with your holiday shopping? There are some opportunities to flip as well!

Lands Ahoy!

Lands are the triple threat of Magic and easily the best permanent type. They are necessary, the fundamental building block of every deck, and have always been some of the most valuable and collectible cards as well. Of course, that means the best lands have long been the most expensive cards. However, right now, prices are extremely attractive on some of the absolute best lands ever printed.

Let's take a look at the horizon lands, named for Horizon Canopy. Personally, I think "canopy lands" is a cooler name, but I digress. These debuted in the $15 range and have been steadily creeping to the $5 range for most versions. Can they go much lower? I don't think so. Yes, they will be reprinted, likely in the next Modern Horizons set. However, between now and then, there are a lot of games of Magic to be played, and these lands are straight value in most decks, particularly Commander.

Not only that, but foil versions have decreased, if by quite a bit less, in the last year. For example, Cardkingdom is paying $21.45 in store credit for foil Waterlogged Grove, and there are quite a few available for just about exactly that amount on both TCGplayer and eBay. When I can buy cards for the same price or less than a large card store, it generally means it's a good idea. Here I am leveraging the data, sales, and sentiment of a huge retailer in addition to my own. It's usually been the right move!

Triomes? More Like Du-Omes!

The Triomes are good lands in multiple formats. My empirical evidence has conclusively shown that they are easily as good as any other two-color land, and since they tap for three colors and have cycling, they're just plain better. It is my opinion that they are near the bottom in the pricing cycle, so I am ready to purchase several. Additionally, I cannot see a reason for a reprint in the next year considering they just completed the cycle with Streets of New Capenna. In much the same way as the horizon lands, the foils had dropped previously but are mostly stable or climbing now.

True Duals

Here we are almost entirely talking about Revised edition dual lands. The icy reception to Magic 30th Anniversary did have a chilling effect on ABUR card prices but, in general, expensive Revised cards were hit the hardest. However, it appears that they have mostly recovered in price and are starting to trend back upwards. If you have been waiting for the price to drop on these, well, you mostly missed it. However, it's still a good deal to buy near the bottom. I've picked up several of the cheaper duals and even a graded one for absolutely bargain basement prices but now's sort of a last-chance window to snap them up.

While lands aren't the most exciting or flashy cards, they are some of the most needed. Horizons and Triomes are better than a random pack of cards and a true dual is better than an entire box (or two or three) of new cards. Seriously! Additionally, these lands range at all different price points. Whether regular, foil, showcase or vintage, there's a land for every budget.

Serialized Brothers' War

#007 James, James Wurmcoil

The name is Quiet Speculation, but here I have to open my mouth. I'm very surprised by the somewhat mild prices for serialized cards. With just a handful in existence and the fact that retro and schematic cards look amazing, it's a no-brainer to conclude these have value. However, the price premium is not unattainable. If these cards, particularly "meme" numbers, don't skyrocket in price over the years, I'd be shocked. Now imagine giving or receiving a desired card with a special, personal number? Talk about the perfect gift for any Magic enthusiast, and very nearly one of a kind. There may just be someone out there who would kill for a seemingly random number down the line.

One of the Best Sealed Products Ever, Jumpstart 2022

I'm not a huge fan of the crazy amount of reprints that Wizards dumps into the market. However, Jumpstart 2022 is very good. It's built for packwars, which it does exceedingly well! Furthermore, these aren't just vanilla reprints. You get some very cool, new artwork. And hey, they aren't $250 per pack like 30th Anniversary proxy packs. They are very reasonably priced. I give credit where credit is due. This is a successful execution of what this type of product must be for Magic to grow.

The target audience loves cracking packs, drafting, and sealed, and Jumpstart checks all the boxes. Commander player? There are a lot of great legends. New player? Packwars is an easy way to learn. You cannot go wrong here! Instead of the standard "this product is not for you," Jumpstart really is a product for everyone. That is what makes it a great gift!

The Only Thing Better Than Cards? Accessories!

Dice, sleeves, playmats, life counters, deck boxes; Magic players need a lot of stuff besides cards! A huge number of small businesses produce nothing but completely custom, one-of-a-kind accessories that any Magic player would enjoy. You might expect the price for custom accoutrements to be high, but turns out it's only a slight premium!

Getting matching sleeves, a deck box and playmat for that completed Commander deck is the cherry on top that makes an excellent and thoughtful gift for anyone.

What Not To Gift

Bulk, Bulk, and More Bulk!

Alright, let's talk about bulk lots, grab bags, repacks, mystery boosters, that sort of thing. These are marketed as gift ideas and, for the right person, they are okay. However, if you compare the price paid versus what you could have gotten instead, these are not good buys. Here's just one real life example how.

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A good friend of mine from many years ago made a deck full of Yotian Soldier, and I mean full. He rule zero'd and told his opponent his deck had far more than the legal four of and no one complained during casual play. All the time people would hand him another one or two Soldiers and he would add them to the deck. At last count it was something like 100 of them.

He would appreciate finding a Yotian in a bulk lot and it wouldn't matter that the other cards were worth pennies. However, for the same amount of money, I could hand him a stack of Soldiers. Alternatively, I could get them a few copies from Antiquities.

Which would make such a player happier? I'm sure they would rather get either original copies or mass quantities of the single card they want versus a pile of generic cards and only one Soldier. More cards does not equal more happy, but more of the right stuff does.

Of Course, the Best Gift Is You

One gift every Magic player treasures is more Magic players. New to Magic? Well, there's still a great opportunity to learn to play with either Jumpstart or the new Commander Starter decks. These could be the easiest and best ways to introduce your friends or significant other to the game. The gift of time is the most valuable and special of all, and these products allow you to make good use of it.

Hopefully I've helped cut through the myriad choices in the Magic market. There are over 25,000 unique Magic cards and many of them are downright awful. Don't waste your money on awful cards or bulk gambles when there are a lot of sure wins out there. Whether it's sealed, singles, or accessories, you can't go wrong with some of the above items. Believe me, your Magic player will thank you!

What's the best Magic gift someone gave you? What was the best gift you've given? Let me know in the comments!

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Joe Mauri

Joe has been an avid MTG player and collector since the summer of 1994 when he started his collection with a booster box of Revised. Millions of cards later he still enjoys tapping lands and slinging spells at the kitchen table, LGS, or digital Arena. Commander followed by Draft are his favorite formats, but, he absolutely loves tournaments with unique build restrictions and alternate rules. A lover of all things feline, he currently resides with no less than five majestic creatures who are never allowed anywhere near his cards. When not Gathering the Magic, Joe loves streaming a variety of games on Twitch(https://www.twitch.tv/beardymagics) both card and other.

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Posted in booster boxes, Boosters, Bulk, Commander, Dual Lands, eBay, Free, HolidaysTagged , , , , , Leave a Comment on 3 Great Gifts (and One Awful) for Your Magic Player

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November ’22 Metagame Update: Divergent Continuity

Posted on by David Ernenwein

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It's the penultimate Modern metagame update of 2022. How this year has lurched by. October saw a ban and thus provided incomplete data. November is the first chance to examine the complete monthly data for the post-Yorion, the Sky Nomad metagame. Which is somewhat facetious, as the more things have changed, the more they've stayed exactly the same.

Continuing Continuity, Differentiating Divergence

UR Murktide has been a statistical outlier in the Magic Online (MTGO) data every metagame update since March, and it continues to be one in November. With two exceptions: it has also been an outlier in the paper results. October was the first exception to outlier status since April. I now need to edit the earlier statement to say three exceptions, since Murktide isn't an outlier in paper Modern again. It isn't even the top deck.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Fury

In fact, paper doesn't have any outliers. This might be a good sign, indicative of Modern adjusting and adapting. On the other hand, there are confounding factors at play that I'll get to down the page.

MTGO made up for that by having three outliers. Both Hammer Time and Rakdos Scam were well over the minimum threshold to be considered statistical outliers. As always, outliers are in their correct place on the metagame chart but are excluded from the actual calculations, resulting in an adjusted average and standard deviation.

November Population Metagame

To make the tier list, a given deck has to beat the overall average population for the month. The average is my estimate for how many results a given deck "should” produce in a given month. Being a tiered deck requires being better than “good enough.” Every deck that posts at least the average number of results is "good enough" and makes the tier list. Then we go one standard deviation (STdev) above average to set the limit of Tier 3 and the cutoff for Tier 2. This mathematically defines Tier 3 as those decks clustered near the average. Tier 2 goes from the cutoff to the next standard deviation. These are decks that perform well above average. Tier 1 consists of those decks at least two standard deviations above the mean result, encompassing the truly exceptional performing decks. 

The MTGO Population Data

In November the adjusted average population for MTGO was 5.33, setting the Tier 3 cutoff at six decks. This is a low average and .02 below October's average, but with three excluded outliers it makes sense. Tier 3, therefore, begins with decks posting six results. The STdev was 6.05, which means that Tier 3 runs to 12 results. Again, it's the starting point to the cutoff, then the next whole number for the next Tier. Since 6.05 is so close to 6.00, I rounded down for October. Therefore Tier 2 starts with 13 results and runs to 19. Subsequently, to make Tier 1, 20 decks are required. This is the exact same set of cutoffs as October, coincidentally.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Primeval Titan

To recap, January had 502 decks, February had 436 decks, March only hit 356, April was up to 437, May had 419, June had 481, July was 478, August was 507, September had 404, and October fell to 340 decks. November shot up to 569 decks, the highest of 2022.

Which is not (necessarily) a sign of format health and popularity. MTGO is under new management, and they release more data than Wizards did. Wizards always released the results from Challenge-level events and no more than five Preliminaries every week. Daybreak Games has been releasing every event that fires. I hope it continues as there were three more Prelims on average than before, which means more complete data for me. November was also special thanks to extra events from the Last Chance Qualifiers.

The number of individual decks was up significantly from 57 to 74. More data equals more decks. Of those 74 decks, 27 made the population tier. That is quite high as these go, though it would be lower without the outliers.

Deck NameTotal #Total %
Tier 1
UR Murktide7913.88
Hammer Time6210.90
Rakdos Scam498.61
Amulet Titan254.39
UW Control244.22
4-Color Creativity203.51
Burn203.51
Tier 2
Jeskai Breach Combo193.34
Yawgmoth193.34
4-Color Control162.81
Living End152.64
Merfolk142.46
Tier 3
Counter Cat122.11
Bring to Light101.76
Hardened Scales101.76
Mono-Green Tron81.41
Mono-Red Artifacts81.41
5-Color Creativity81.41
4-Color Rhinos81.41
Grixis Death's Shadow81.41
Goblins71.23
Calibrated Blast71.23
Jund Saga71.23
Temur Breach Comob61.05
UW Urza61.05
Mill61.05
Hell's Kitchen61.05
So... yeah. Tier 1.

Thanks to the three outliers soaking up over a third of the total places, Tier 1 accounts of almost half of the total data in November. Interestingly, UW Control has managed to massively surge from mid-Tier 3 to Tier 1. I'd assume that it has more to do with the demise of Omnath, Locus of Creation in the wake of Yorion's ban than an independent increased interest or metagame position. Control can't really keep pace with decks where everything is a two for one or better.

The Paper Population Data

The paper tiers are calculated the same way as the MTGO tiers, just with different data. Typically, there are more paper events are reported each month, but that isn't the case in November. July had 783 decks, June had 640, and August recorded 594. September saw a surge up to 748 decks. The partial data for October had 467 decks, and November only saw 468.

Having a whole month should have produced a lot more than October, but November had confounding variables. The Regional Championships were this month and they're all Pioneer. A lot of stores switched Modern events for Pioneer to help players practice. The larger event organizers followed suit, so few and smaller events are to blame.

Weirdly, this has not affected deck diversity. October had 79 unique decks and so did November. 22 of those decks made the tier list. The average population was 5.92, so six decks make Tier 3. The STDev was 8.91, so the increment is nine. I round down if the decimal is less than .20. Again, the same as in October. Therefore, Tier 3 runs from 6 to 15, Tier 2 is 16 to 25, and Tier 1 is 26 and over.

Deck NameTotal #Total %
Tier 1
Hammer Time4710.04
UR Murktide377.91
4-Color Creativity347.26
Rakdos Scam306.41
Tier 2
Amulet Titan234.91
Jeskai Breach Combo224.70
Burn204.27
Tier 3
UW Control153.20
Merfolk153.20
Yawgmoth142.99
Living End132.78
Affinity132.78
4-Color Rhinos132.78
Cascade Crashers91.92
4-Color Elementals91.92
5-Color Creativity81.71
Counter Cat81.71
Grixis Death's Shadow71.50
Hardened Scales71.50
Ponza61.28
Mono-Green Tron61.28
4-Color Control61.28
Weird seeing Tiers 1 and 3 effectively equal.

Hammer Time is within the limit to be an outlier, despite appearances. It only started to pull away at the end of the month, when it was absurdly prevalent in an NRG event. Up until that point Murktide, Hammer, and 4-Color Creativity were basically equal.

Interestingly, both Crashing Footfalls decks made Tier 3 in November. The 4-Color version is the only one that shows up on MTGO, but both show up in paper all the time. The Temur version has shifted to being more of a Blood Moon deck than before. Whether this is paper players being more locked into decks than MTGO or a genuine metagame driven shift is unknown.

November Power Metagame

Tracking the metagame in terms of population is standard practice. But how do results actually factor in? Better decks should also have better results. In an effort to measure this, I use a power ranking system in addition to the prevalence list. By doing so, I measure the relative strengths of each deck within the metagame. The population method gives a deck that consistently just squeaks into the Top 32 the same weight as one that Top 8's. Using a power ranking rewards good results and moves the winningest decks to the top of the pile and better reflects their metagame potential. 

The MTGO Power Tiers

For the MTGO data, points are awarded based on the population of the event. Preliminaries award points based on record (1 for 3 wins, 2 for 4 wins, 3 for 5), and Challenges are scored 3 points for the Top 8, 2 for Top 16, and 1 for Top 32. If I can find them, non-Wizards events will be awarded points the same as Challenges or Preliminaries depending on what the event in question reports/behaves like. Super Qualifiers and similar higher-level events get an extra point and so do other events if they’re over 200 players, with a fifth point for going over 400 players. There were a few 4-point events, but no 5-pointer in November.

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Total points fell are up just like the population, from 599 to 890. The adjusted average points were 8.28, therefore nine points made Tier 3. The STDev was 9.05, which is average. Thus add 9 to the starting point and Tier 3 runs to 18 points. Tier 2 starts with 19 points and runs to 28. Tier 1 requires at least 29 points.

Total decks are the same in paper as on MTGO. However, Temur Underworld Breach fell off the list, replaced by Belcher.

Deck NameTotal PointsTotal %
Tier 1
UR Murktide12113.60
Hammer Time9110.22
Rakdos Scam9010.11
UW Control394.38
Amulet Titan323.60
Jeskai Breach Combo303.37
4-Color Creativity293.26
Yawgmoth293.26
Tier 2
Burn283.15
Merfolk262.92
4-Color Control222.47
Living End202.25
Tier 3
Counter Cat171.91
Bring to Light171.91
Hardened Scales171.91
Mono-Green Tron151.68
Mono-Red Artifacts131.46
5-Color Creativity131.46
4-Color Rhinos131.46
Goblins121.35
Hell's Kitchen121.35
Grixis Death's Shadow111.24
Mill111.24
Calibrated Blast101.12
Jund Saga91.01
Belcher91.01
UW Urza91.01
And now Tier 1's over 50%. Great.

Tier 1 expanded, with Burn missing the cutoff while Jeskai Breach and Yawgmoth made it. There is a lot of movement within Tier 3, but nothing managed to escape.

It's interesting to note that the metagame has largely moved away from cascade decks in defiance of the trend earlier in the year.

The Paper Power Tiers

Unlike with population, the paper power data works differently than the equivalent MTGO data. The data reported is usually limited to the Top 8 lists, even for big events. Not that I know how big most events are, as that number doesn't always get reported.

In other cases, decks are missing. Applying the MTGO point system just doesn't work when I don't know how many points to award and there are data gaps. 

There was an error retrieving a chart for Risen Reef

Thus, I award points based on the size of the tournament rather than placement. That way I'm being internally consistent with the paper results.

The current system is that for events that don't report their starting populations or are under 50 players, I'm giving out 1 point. 51-300 players get 2 points. 301 and above get 3 points. I chose these levels based on the rarity of events over 300 compared to 100-200 and the fact that events under 300 tend to be local events in large cities. It feels like it should be 300 for truly unique events, despite there being no Grand Prix yet. I will be changing how the points are allocated next year, starting with the January metagame update.

There were a huge number of events awarding 2 points in July and several 3-point events as well. Altogether November had 660 points, just up from October's 650 points, but again that's to be expected when Pioneer's the focus.

The average points were 8.35. This sets the cutoff at nine decks. The STDev was 12.93, thus adding 13 to the starting point and Tier 3 runs to 22 points. Tier 2 starts with 23 points and runs to 36. Tier 1 requires at least 37 points. The total decks fell from 22 to 19. The only deck with six instances that also had enough points to qualify was 4-Color Control.

Deck NameTotal #Total %
Tier 1
Hammer Time7110.76
UR Murktide507.57
Rakdos Scam477.12
4-Color Creativity446.67
Tier 2
Amulet Titan355.30
Jeskai Breach Combo324.85
Burn294.39
Tier 3
UW Control213.18
Merfolk213.18
4-Color Rhinos213.18
Yawgmoth192.88
Living End192.88
Affinity172.58
Counter Cat142.12
4-Color Elementals111.67
5-Color Creativity111.67
Grixis Death's Shadow111.67
Cascade Crashers101.51
4-Color Control91.36
This is a bit more normal looking.

Big news on this front: I've come to a decision about the Omnath decks and names. The decks that run four Omanth and Solitude but few other creatures are 4-Color Control. If it has Risen Reef and noncreature spells it counts as 4-Color Elementals. If it has Reef, more elementals, and few non-creatures, that's Tribal Elementals. If there are at least three blink effects, it's 4-Color Blink. Of note, Blink has almost disappeared, and even then Ephemerate is gone, replaced by Touch the Spirit Realm.

Average Power Rankings

Finally, we come to the average power rankings. These are found by taking the total points earned and dividing them by total decks, to measure points per deck. I use this to measure strength vs. popularity. Measuring deck strength is hard. There is no Wins-Above-Replacement metric for Magic, and I'm not certain that one could be credibly devised. The game is too complex, and even then, power is very contextual.

Using the power rankings certainly helps and serves to show how justified a deck’s popularity is. However, more popular decks will still necessarily earn a lot of points. Which tracks, but also means that the top tier doesn't move much between population and power, and obscures whether they really earned their position. 

There was an error retrieving a chart for Colossus Hammer

This is where the averaging comes in. Decks that earn a lot of points because they get a lot of results will do worse than decks that win more events, indicating which deck actually performs better. A higher average indicates lots of high finishes, whereas low averages result from mediocre performances and a high population. Lower-tier decks typically do very well here, likely due to their pilots being enthusiasts. Bear this in mind, and be careful about reading too much into these results. However, as a general rule, decks which place above the baseline average are overperforming and vice versa.

How far above or below that average determines how "justified" a deck's position is on the power tiers. Decks well above baseline are therefore undervalued while decks well below baseline are very popular but aren't necessarily good. 

The Real Story

When considering the average points, the key is looking at how far-off a deck is from the Baseline stat (the overall average of points/population). The closer a deck’s performance to the Baseline, the more likely it is to be performing close to its “true” potential. A deck that is exactly average would therefore perform exactly as well as expected. The greater the deviation from the average, the more a deck under or over-performs. On the low end, a deck’s placing was mainly due to population rather than power, which suggests it’s overrated. A high-scoring deck is the opposite of this. 

I'll begin with the averages for MTGO: 

Deck NameAverage PointsPower Tier
Belcher3.003
Hell's Kitchen2.003
Mono-Green Tron1.873
Merfolk1.862
Rakdos Scam1.841
Mill1.833
Goblins1.713
Bring to Light1.703
Hardened Scales1.703
UW Control1.621
Mono-Red Artifacts1.623
5-Color Creativity1.623
4-Color Rhinos1.623
Jeskai Breach Combo1.581
Baseline1.58
UR Murktide1.531
Yawgmoth1.531
UW Urza1.503
Hammer Time1.471
4-Color Creativity1.451
Calibrated Blast1.433
Counter Cat1.423
Burn1.402
4-Color Control1.372
Grixis Death's Shadow1.373
Living End1.332
Jund Saga1.293
Amulet Titan1.281

Congratulations to Rakdos Scam for being the best performing Tier 1 deck on MTGO. You're deck of the month, though we all suspect you cheated. Meanwhile, Amulet Titan, get your act together. No Tier 1 deck has ever been at the bottom of these rankings before. Put some effort into winning or just accept Tier 3 status.

Now, the averages for paper:

Deck NameAverage PointsPower Tier
Counter Cat1.753
4-Color Rhinos1.613
Rakdos Scam1.571
Grixis Death's Shadow1.573
Amulet Titan1.522
Hammer Time1.511
4-Color Control1.503
Living End1.463
Jeskai Breach Combo1.452
Burn1.452
UW Control1.403
Merfolk1.403
Baseline1.38
5-Color Creativity1.373
Yawgmoth1.363
UR Murktide1.351
Affinity1.313
4-Color Creativity1.291
4-Color Elementals1.223
Cascade Crashers1.113

And Scam sweeps both categories. Check the judge's bank accounts; surely there must be some bribery involved.

Composite Metagame

That's a lot of data, but what does it all mean? When Modern Nexus first started, we had a statistical method to combine the MTGO and paper data, but the math of that system doesn't work without big paper events. I tried. Instead, I'm using an averaging system to combine the data. I take the MTGO results and average the tier, then separately average the paper results, then average the paper and MTGO results together for final tier placement. 

There was an error retrieving a chart for Murktide Regent

This generates a lot of partial Tiers. That's not a bug, it's a feature. The nuance separates the solidly Tiered decks from the more flexible ones and shows the true relative power differences between the decks. Every deck in the paper and MTGO results is on the table, and when they don't appear in a given category, they're marked N/A. This is treated as a 4 for averaging purposes.

Deck NameMTGO Pop. TierMTGO Power TierMTGO Average TierPaper Pop. TierPaper Power TierPaper Average TierComposite Tier
Rakdos Scam111.00111.001.00
UR Murktide111.00111.001.00
Hammer Time111.00111.001.00
4-Color Creativity111.00111.001.00
Amulet Titan111.00222.001.50
Jeskai Breach Combo211.50222.001.75
Burn121.50222.001.75
UW Control111.00333.002.00
Yawgmoth211.50333.002.25
Merfolk222.00333.002.50
4-Color Control222.00333.002.50
Living End222.00333.002.50
5-Color Creativity333.00333.003.00
4-Color Rhinos333.00333.003.00
Counter Cat333.00333.003.00
Grixis Death's Shadow333.00333.003.00
Mono-Green Tron333.003N/A3.503.25
Hardened Scales333.003N/A3.503.25
Hell's Kitchen333.00N/AN/AN/A3.50
Mill333.00N/AN/AN/A3.50
Goblins333.00N/AN/AN/A3.50
Bring to Light333.00N/AN/AN/A3.50
Mono-Red Artifacts333.00N/AN/AN/A3.50
UW Urza333.00N/AN/AN/A3.50
Calibrated Blast333.00N/AN/AN/A3.50
Jund Saga333.00N/AN/AN/A3.50
Cascade CrashersN/AN/AN/A333.003.50
AffinityN/AN/AN/A333.003.50
4-Color ElementalsN/AN/AN/A333.003.50
Temur Breach3N/A3.50N/AN/AN/A3.75
BelcherN/A33.50N/AN/AN/A3.75
PonzaN/AN/AN/A3N/A3.503.75
This metagame chart is heavily skewed and it's MTGO's fault.

Thanks to MTGO's ridiculous number of outliers holding their thumbs on the scale, Tier 1 represented an inordinate percentage of the overall Modern metagame in November. If this continues, it will mostly likely be bad times.

Dynamic Stability

November was very much a continuation of the trends first seen in October. I'd expect that to continue in December, when Magic traditionally takes a breather and events are down. Come 2023, the conclusion of the current Phyrexian storyline will have consequences. Hopefully, not dire, but we'll all see.

Adam’s Top 10 Modern Cards of 2022

Posted on by Adam Cohen

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It's finally December and all Magic expansions for the year have officially been released. To celebrate, this week I'll be doing a look back at my top 10 cards released in 2022 that have made waves in the Modern format. I'll preface the article with a disclaimer that these are simply my opinion. If I missed your favorite or something isn't where you'd expect it to rank, let me know in the comments below. With that out of the way, let's get started...

10. Touch the Spirit Realm

Earning the tenth spot on my list is Touch the Spirit Realm, a modal Oblivion Ring variant that can blink a creature or artifact at instant speed. Its channel ability lets it get through Counterspells as well as Teferi, Time Raveler's static ability, creating opportunities to sneak past the opponent's interaction or removal. Most notably, Touch the Spirit Realm started seeing success in Keruga, the Macrosage midrange decks as a companion-compliant alternative to Ephemerate, a midrange staple from before Yorion, Sky Nomad's banning.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Touch the Spirit Realm

9. Haywire Mite

A late addition, courtesy of The Brothers' War, Haywire Mite has been a big boon for Modern Urza's Saga decks. It's a tutorable answer to sideboard lock pieces like Leyline of the Void or even just opposing Urza's Sagas. Another card featured on this list, Leyline Binding has proven to be one of the best and most popular removal spells in the format, answering just about any threat. For minimal cost, Haywire Mite shuts down Leyline Binding to get back whichever key piece the opponent needed to deal with.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Haywire Mite

8. Rundvelt Hordemaster/Leaf-Crowned Visionary

Rundvelt Hordemaster and Leaf-Crowned Visionary share the next spot. They represent the top performers of the Dominaria United lord cycle, with Vodalian Hexcatcher in a distant third place. Thanks to Hordemaster, Modern Goblins has access to its first two-mana lord, massively improving its aggro lines. Hordemaster also works exceptionally well with the Conspicuous Snoop combo plan by helping to dig for either Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on top of the library, or Sling-Gang Lieutenant for the instant kill.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Rundvelt Hordemaster

Visionary does two of the three things Elves want: buffing the team and drawing cards. The third piece of the puzzle, mana acceleration, isn't necessarily part of Visionary's portfolio, but it works well with cards like Llanowar Elves that do. If a mana dork comes down before Visionary, its stats are more respectable, and if it comes down after, it's cheap enough to pay the mana to cantrip. Leaf-Crowned Visionary has become a major support piece for Modern elves and it's exactly the kind of card needed to bring the archetype back into consideration.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Leaf-Crowned Visionary

7. Unlicensed Hearse

My number seven pick, Unlicensed Hearse, is the latest in a long line of graveyard hate effects, and easily one of the best. Cards like Tormod's Crypt and Soul-Guide Lantern are powerful for being able to one-shot a graveyard, stopping any value the first time the opponent chooses to utilize the zone as a resource. Relic of Progenitus is in a similar vein, but gets to remove one card a turn, offering the potential of getting ahead of the opponent's critical mass of cards in the graveyard for effects like Living End.

Hearse's play patterns follow a similar mentality to Relic of Progenitus, but by removing two cards a turn, it's much harder for the opponent to overcome the deficit. While Relic and Soul-Guide Lantern both have the potential to cantrip into a random card, Hearse actually becomes a worthwhile card in its own right after locking down the graveyard for a few turns. Each card exiled adds power and toughness to the two-drop vehicle. In just a few turns, that represents a 6/6, 8/8, or 10/10 creature, presumably the biggest body on the board, and can just attack the opponent with its best The Abyss impression. The Hearse is equal parts disruption and finisher making it one of the best ways to combat graveyard strategies.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Unlicensed Hearse

6. The Wandering Emperor

The Wandering Emperor is one of my favorite planeswalker designs, period. Planeswalkers tend to show up in control strategies that want the game to go long so the planeswalker can activate multiple times and start to snowball card advantage. However, these decks struggle to safely deploy their planeswalkers due to their often expensive mana costs and the need to hold up removal or interaction. Being able to land a planeswalker and keep mana up for interaction is why cards like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria have been so historically successful. The Wandering Emperor takes it one step further with flash. It can be cast after attackers to guarantee it's not being attacked, improving its survivability. And its other static ability lets it activate even on the opponents' turn so the caster isn't missing any value for not playing it on their turn. Alternatively, The Wandering Emperor can be cast in the end step after holding up countermagic and removal. If those interactive spells aren't needed, the player can cast the Emperor to make use of the otherwise unused mana.

Each sequence involving The Wandering Emperor more or less guarantees two or more activations. Given that it can create multiple powerful blockers, act as removal, or buff existing threats, it's exceptionally hard to overcome.

There was an error retrieving a chart for The Wandering Emperor

5. The Tri Lands

One of the most noteworthy additions to Magic from Streets of New Capenna is the completion of the Tri Land cycle (formerly the Triome cycle started in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths). With access to Ziatora's Proving Ground, Spara's Headquarters, and the rest of the cycle, color splashing has never been easier. UW Control decks now get splash Wrenn and Six for free while powering up Prismatic Ending and Leyline Binding. Indomitable Creativity decks that require every land to be a Mountain still have access to Teferi, Time Raveler on curve.

Fetchable three-color lands have done more to revolutionize mana bases and how the game is played than nearly any other land cycle. For that reason, they are the fifth entry on my list.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Raffine's Tower
There was an error retrieving a chart for Xander's Lounge
There was an error retrieving a chart for Jetmir's Garden
There was an error retrieving a chart for Ziatora's Proving Ground
There was an error retrieving a chart for Spara's Headquarters

4. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is a card I talk about a lot, mainly because it's a powerhouse in every format and does just about everything. Fable is impossible to answer cleanly since it creates two bodies that have the capacity to generate additional forms of card and mana advantage. It also trades in unwanted cards from the player's hand for a shot at something better.

Fable can even act as an enabler for reanimator strategies with Archon of Cruelty and Persist, not only putting the Archon in the graveyard to bring back, but copying it and making an attacking token down the line. This is a common line in the Indomitable Creativity combo, but the card also acts as mana acceleration and token fodder for the namesake Creativity. It can even accomplish this under a Blood Moon which would otherwise lock the Creativity player out of the game.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki

3. Boseiju, Who Endures/Otawara, Soaring City

Coming in third is the cycle of legendary channel lands from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, particularly the top two members: Boseiju, Who Endures and Otawara, Soaring City. Simply put, these are among the strongest cards ever printed and have zero opportunity cost.

Boseiju provides decks with mainboard artifact, enchantment, and land removal they otherwise would not be able to accommodate. It widens the range of answerable permanent types in game one. Otawara also answers problematic permanents, and neither can be countered. If needed, these are untapped lands that produce colored mana. There's no downside to including a copy of each in every deck that can support their colors.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Boseiju, Who Endures

For cascade decks, these are huge pickups that can remove Chalice of the Void and Teferi, Time Raveler, both lock pieces that stop the deck from functioning. Midrange decks can utilize Wrenn and Six to keep picking these cards back up from the graveyard and reuse them. Decks like Scapeshift that rely on Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, Tron using Urza's Tower, and Hammer Time using Sigarda's Aid and Colossus Hammer will struggle from repeatedly having their key resources removed over and over again.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Otawara, Soaring City

2. Ledger Shredder

Just like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, I talk about Ledger Shredder quite a bit, and for good reason. Ledger Shredder is one of the strongest tempo creatures ever printed. It generates value from playing cheap spells and disincentivizes the opponent from casting more than one spell in a turn. In addition to helping draw toward key cards for a matchup, Shredder gets harder and harder to remove the longer it remains in play. In UR Grinding Breach, it fuels the graveyard with fodder for Underworld Breach all while finding the missing combo piece and offering an aggressive beatdown plan as an alternative. It's really hard to go wrong with a threat that's as good offensively as it is defensively.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Ledger Shredder

1. Leyline Binding

Taking the top spot on my list is Leyline Binding a revolutionary and powerful removal spell that hits any non-land permanent for the low cost of one mana (with minor setup costs). Modern is a powerful format with a wide array of threats in every card type. Having unconditional, instant-speed removal is critical to staying alive and Leyline Binding is able to do that as early as turn 2.

Binding also has the benefit of a printed mana value of seven, meaning it's compliant with Keruga, the Macrosage and Cascade's deckbuilding requirements. These archetypes historically struggled with the early game due to how few interactive spells let them operate on turns one and two. Frequently, they use Bonecrusher Giant, Fire//Ice, and Mystical Dispute. Other split cards and adventure cards like Dead//Gone and Brazen Borrower sometimes see play, but pickings are slim. The addition of Leyline leaves these decks wanting for very little and further mitigates the downside of their restrictions.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Leyline Binding

End Step

What'd you think of my top 10 Modern cards from 2022? Were there any cards you think I missed? Leave a comment or shoot me a message on Twitter or Twitch to let me know your list.

2022 had a wildly powerful card pool that has forever changed the way Magic is played. With sets like March of the Machine and the direct-to-Modern The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth coming next year, 2023 is poised to be an even bigger upset. I can't wait to see everything that's in store for us.

Magic 30: A Retrospective

Posted on by Sigmund Ausfresser

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I’ve spent the last few weeks writing about my experience at Magic 30 in Las Vegas, looking at it from different angles. I started with an overall impression, followed it up with my Magic finance observations, and then shared my play and networking experiences.

I hope I've given you a sense that this was a productive and highly rewarding trip. It was a rare opportunity for me since I often have weekend commitments with the family that inhibit me from traveling for major Magic events.

Enough looking back—now it’s time to look ahead! MagicCon: Philadelphia is already on the horizon for February 2023. While I don’t think I’ll be able to go to that event myself, I want to share a few tips based on my Vegas experience that will help you maximize your time there, no matter what your priorities are!

Tip 1: If You’re Flying…

To start, some advice if you’re new or relatively inexperienced with flying to Magic events. Every standard airport rule applies, of course, but there are a couple of additional things to watch out for when traveling with valuable cards.

First, be prepared for security to pull aside your backpack/bag containing your Magic cards. This happened to me both on the way to Las Vegas and on the way home. A TSA official pulled my backpack off the belt to open it up and inspect it. They also opened up some of the boxes with the cards inside (I was using the boxes that come with bundles to house my cards).

There was an error retrieving a chart for Security Detail

Once they saw the contents were in fact just trading cards, they packed everything up and I was on my way. Just be prepared for the stoppage. Make sure you keep a very close watch on your stuff. It’s unlikely people will know the value of what you have in your bag, but it never hurts to remain vigilant. Try not to make it obvious that you are walking around with $ 100s or $ 1,000s in Magic cards.

Tip 2: Do Your Homework

I pride myself on how well I prepared to sell cards at this event. Other than the SNAFU I had with the two graded cards I forgot to research, I had a very easy time selling to vendors because I already knew what online buylists looked like. I basically handed over my spreadsheet of numbers on a sheet of paper and asked the vendor if there were any cards on the list that they’d be interested in buying near the prices indicated. Here’s a snapshot showing how I structured this spreadsheet:

Since I primarily buylist to Card Kingdom and ABUGames, I used their buylists as references. I subtracted percentages to adjust for condition (most of my cards were played or HP), which I used as guide rails for negotiation.

While you’re at it, make sure you de-sleeve the small-value cards so it’s easier for vendors to browse through them and inspect their condition. Try to avoid selling double-sleeved cards at all costs, as it’s a major hassle.

Tip 3: Try to Plan Meet-ups in Advance

Since it’s so rare for me to get to a large, in-person Magic event, I try to network as much as possible while there. This time around, I was so focused on the selling aspect that I neglected to coordinate much in terms of social activity. This was the right call given my prioritization, but it did leave me wanting more interaction than I managed throughout the weekend.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Meeting of the Five

My advice: try to plan with friends in advance a time and place to meet (or at least check-in). It was so easy to hang out with a friend before the event, only to lose sight of them for the rest of the day once doors opened. Everyone walks inside together with different goals in mind, and if you don’t have an identical plan as your friend, it’s easy to part ways and lose track of time. If instead, I had agreed on a time and place during the event to meet, I could have deliberately planned that into my day. This would definitely have helped me get more fun Commander games over the weekend.

Tip 4: Don’t Bring Excess

This tip relates to the first three. If you’re planning on selling cards at the next big Magic event, obviously you have to bring those with you. Additionally, if you’re planning to play in certain constructed side events, you’ll need to bring those cards too.

Do you really need to bring eight different Commander decks, though? If you’re not deliberately allocating time to play with them, you likely won’t have the time to use them. For Las Vegas, I packed my three Commander decks as well as some Havic: The Bothering decks to show off during the weekend. This was unnecessary weight in my backpack, as I had no time to play with these cards.

At least the value of my Commander decks isn’t significant, so I wasn’t taking on additional risk in that way. It was just unnecessary to lug around all weekend. Make sure you know what your priorities are, and bring what you need. There’s no need to bring the kitchen sink—your back will thank you later.

Tip 5: Know the Event Schedule Beforehand

It was easy enough to find the address and hours for the event (though, there was still some uncertainty because different tiers had access to different places at different times). However, I had no clue about the big presentations and events scheduled throughout the weekend. I feel like I missed so much because I didn’t pay attention to the agenda.

Granted, this wasn’t my priority, so I have to be OK with this outcome. Still, I would have liked to have seen the interview with Richard Garfield, the historical lookback in pictures with Mark Rosewater, the big cosplay event, and others. In an alternate universe, I attended these activities instead of playing in side events and had a more fulfilling experience.

Don’t make the same mistake as me. Deliberately scan through the activities scheduled for the weekend, and know what you’re OK to miss and what you really want to see. Plan around that. It may mean skipping a side event that conflicts. There will always be more side events—there are not always more opportunities to watch some of Magic’s biggest personalities present on stage.

Tip 6: If You Want to Maximize Value, Be Prepared to Negotiate

This is a corollary to tip 2. If you have a good bit of data in hand and some off-hand knowledge of card prices, you can leverage this to negotiate a more favorable price. Granted, you can’t go up to a vendor and expect to bully them to get better numbers, nor should you negotiate a dollar here and there on every single card. Instead, try to keep the big picture in mind.

While I was selling to Tales of Adventure, I noticed that they paid very well on some of the cards I offered, such as Revised Volcanic Island. That was great.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Volcanic Island

They didn’t pay as much as I had hoped, however, on some of the Arabian Nights cards I wanted to sell, including Erhnam Djinn and Serendib Efreet. This was tougher for me to accept, because I knew I could grind more value selling to someone in the Old School Discord, for example.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Serendib Efreet

I reconciled the gap by reminding myself of a few important things:

a) they are paying very well on other cards, so in a way, it balances out.
b) I didn’t want to spend all day walking cards around the event hall trying to make 5% more.
c) the offer they made was fair relative to online buylists.
d) the vendor had cash in hand and was ready to pay immediately (a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush).

These stores have to make money, but they need to pay competitively enough to actually bring in inventory throughout the weekend. It’s about finding that balance—you won’t be happy about every number on every card. If you take the aggregate view, study the data, and negotiate strategically, you’ll accomplish your goals without wasting everybody’s time.

Tip 7: Buy Tickets Early

Last, but certainly not least, make sure you purchase your event tickets as early as you can. Now that Wizards of the Coast is capping these events, they’re at risk of selling out. In my case, I was able to get the basic entry (Emerald Pass) but missed out on the higher-tier passes. I also couldn’t get into some of the side events that interested me because those also sold out very quickly.

If you plan on going, coordinate with friends and pick your side events/entry passes as quickly as possible to ensure you don’t get locked out. It sounds simple, but procrastination is common and can really penalize you here.

Wrapping It Up

Large Magic events always have so much to offer. These 30th-anniversary celebration events are even more jam-packed with activities, events, and opportunities. I’m not sure what Wizards of the Coast plan for large in-person events between 2023 and 2032 (when they’ll plan their 40th-anniversary celebrations), but it’s definitely worth trying to participate if you can.

These events are few and far between. I hope sharing my top tips helps you maximize your enjoyment and productivity at these events. It’s impossible to do everything. Accepting that upfront will enable you to prioritize, while hopefully avoiding the FOMO that inevitably accompanies large events. While I did a decent job, I recognize I left some potential enjoyment on the table due to insufficient planning and a narrow-minded focus.

Looking ahead, my hope is that I’ll be able to put these tips into practice myself at some future event. It likely won’t be the Philadelphia celebration in February, but perhaps later in 2023 or in 2024, I’ll find that next opportunity. One thing is for sure. When I go, my priorities will look a good bit differently, and hopefully, I’ll get to enjoy other aspects of the event that I missed out on in Las Vegas.

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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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$12 Commander: Is It the Cards… or You, the Player?

Posted on by Joe Mauri

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The best part of playing Magic is the virtually limitless number of scenarios you can experience in every one of your games. Even so, Magic players tend to be a weird bunch. There are piles of websites dedicated to ranking cards, decks, and strategies, even though they don't know your local meta, power level, or group identity. The idea of "builds" and "staples" is contrary to the fundamental purpose of the Commander format, yet many Magic players subscribe to these ideas. Why?

My explanation: human nature. Competition is not only an aspect of humanity, but also the Earth. Through billions of years of evolution and natural selection, everything on this planet has become better, stronger, more efficient; humanity is the prime example. There's even a well-known trope for this idea.

When you win or lose, you evaluate what happened, and a lot of players' evaluation ends up being "My cards weren't good enough!" or "I lost to someone else's wallet!" Fewer players think "I played that wrong" or "What could I have done to win that?" In parallel, I've continued to ask the question: "How low can you go?" on budget and power while maintaining a functional deck.

Katilda, Budget Commander

There was an error retrieving a chart for Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr

Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr was a Commander custom built deck I picked up off eBay for $12 shipped. The reason that I purchased this deck was not for play, but purely to pick up full-art lands and Commander staples on the cheap. However, that week, I did not have a new deck ready, so I decided to play Katilda. You know, for fun?

The power level of this deck hovers somewhere between a two and three. It's extremely close to what I would call "a pile of cards" and "a pile of somewhat synergistic cards." Here are the breakdowns of cards by type.

  • Spirits (Creatures) - 15
  • Enchantments - 22
  • Artifacts - 12
  • Sorceries - 6
  • Instants - 8
  • Lands - 37

An astute reader may spot an issue here. These add up to 100 cards plus Katilda as 101. Bonus card for me I guess! I cut a basic land to maintain the "integrity" of the original deck designer's "vision," and you will see what I mean by that (and the scare quotes). What does 12 cents a card get you?

Some Absolutely Terrible Choices

Yes, these cards were included in a mono-white deck. While I am a stickler about misusing the term "strictly," I'hat d still argue these are strictly worse for this deck than just basic Plains. There's really no reason to include five color, tapped, pay one mana or sacrifice lands. None at all. This is the worst part of the land base that I played with, but by no means is it the only wrongdoing.

Remember, I paid $12 for this deck, and the inclusion of these lands helped make it very decent in terms of price. But in terms of play? There's no reason for any of them. There's no artifact synergy with the rest of the deck for Ancient Den or Darksteel Citadel. No life gain synergy for Radiant Fountain, or mill protection with Drownyard Temple. Command Tower is absolutely worthless here and should just be a Plains. Finally, Thespian's Stage could at least copy something someone else has and could be decent in theory, but I wonder: in how many games it would really matter?

This is something I am working on; namely, a term that means "did this truly matter?" Since I have been tracking this idea, the difference between, for example, Contaminated Aquifer and Underground Sea has not mattered. I mean this. I've asked around tables if it mattered that this particular land came into play tapped this turn, and the universal answer was "No." That said, obviously it's better to have an untapped land than a tapped land in much the same way that it would obviously be better to have a basic Plains in a mono-white deck than a Stage. But I digress. That's the theory; I'd argue that in practice, in this deck, none of these choices mattered enough to warrant inclusion over basic lands.

What Does It Have?

These are the EDREC top 100 cards in this deck. Comically, not a single top 100 white card is present, even though there are several thematically strong and synergistic cards available that are within the "budget" of this deck like Selfless Spirit or Ethereal Armor. So what did this deck even do? Not much.

In game one I durdled while my opponents assembled value engines, removed threats, and eventually combo'd out the table. My 5/5 flying, protection from Vampires commander did nothing, my random 2/3 vanilla spirits did nothing, and my value enchantments, well, did nothing. I made sure the table knew all about it. So in game two, I decided I was going to do something. I took one mulligan because I wanted to ensure that I had at least a single piece of removal. With removal, I could affect the outcome of the game, or at least attempt to. That piece of removal was Angelic Purge.

The Purge Isn't Just a Movie

It turns out that this extreme budget deck still had some tricks up its sleeve. I decided to sacrifice my commander to Purge a Smothering Tithe that would heavily stall the game. My reasoning for losing my commander rather than another card? Since Katilda had bestow, I could suit up my Phantom Nomad, who would become effectively immune to damage. Way back in 2002, I had felt first hand the devastating power of Phantom Nomad and cards like it. By losing all +1/+1 counters but being enchanted, the creature became immune to damage and nigh-unkillable. When the table was hit with a Blasphemous Act, I just laughed.

Soon after, it was time for diplomacy. A united table ganged up on the Atraxa, Praetors' Voice deck, taking them out. Subsequently, the next player fell to my Nomad in one attack. Suddenly my absolute garbage-tier deck was in a 1v1 situation. How would it fare?

What a Game-Winning Card (Can) Look Like

There was an error retrieving a chart for Sigarda's Imprisonment

After a few attacks in the air, my opponent produced some reach Spiders courtesy of Lolth, Spider Queen. I tried to overwhelm them with an Inspired Charge but they had removal and enough blockers, barely surviving with critical HP. If I didn't do something soon, they would easily overtake Katilda.

I trusted in the heart of the cards and top-decked a Sigarda's Imprisonment, which locked down one blocker and allowed me to force through lethal. Personally, I was shocked. While I do come to every Commander table ready to play my best, I did not believe the pile of cards purchased off a random seller on eBay with so many build mistakes was capable of winning a single game.

Of course, that was my mistake. Turns out it's not about the deck or the cards in it, but about the player. From the opening decision to keep a hand with some interaction, to working diplomacy on the table, to leveraging an ancient card interaction, I had forgotten that the player is the single most important ingredient in executing a game plan. Far too often, players (including myself) forget that Magic is a game of both chance and skill, knowledge and best guesses. Even in a deck full of powerful Commander staples, you may simply not draw them. You then have to figure out how to win with what you have, not what you want!

Future Plans for Katilda?

I'm going to use part of this deck for my Hofri Ghostforge tribal Spirits deck that will not feature any overlapping Spirits from the Millicent, Restless Revenant deck I play against at home. The value of this purchase has paid massive dividends not just in terms of cash value but also fun factor, replay value, and creative inspiration... look no further than this very article!

Furthermore, it has driven home the point that even budget cards are playable and can put in work at most Commander tables. The vast majority of games are not played at the highest competitive tournament level, but in a social group dynamic; for fun. Lately, I've been playing a lot of the pre-made Commander decks, and they have proven to be both fun and powerful enough to take on my peers.

After my Katilda experiment, I've been trying to get even lower and more random in my budget deck search, but finding entire Commander decks for so little is difficult. Still, I'm someone who will try it! Just wait until the day I buy an entire deck for a penny (I'm counting on it).

What is your favorite budget deck? Budget card? In this era of cheap cards, does it really matter what you play? Let me know in the comments. And as always, have the most fun at your Commander table!

A Few Odd Spikes

Posted on by David Schumann

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What do Grislbrand, Jetmir's Garden, and Temple of Enlightenment all have in common? They have all recently had an odd overpriced purchase recently. I began noticing this trend while doing my daily review of MTGStocks interests.

The first one was Griselbrand. When I saw its market price jump, I got very excited, as I have quite a few copies. Then I looked into it and found that there were numerous copies below that price listed on TCGPlayer. TCGPlayer now allows you to see recent purchase history, which is fantastic information for the Magic finance community given TCGPlayer's dominance of the secondary card sales community here in the US. I noticed that there were a few sales of Griselbrand all on the same day at the same exorbitant price.

It is important to note that when I look up Temple of Enlightenment, the $95.00 sale shown above is no longer listed in the recent sales for the card on TCGPlayer; however, the Jetmir's Garden and the Griselbrand sales are still listed.

What is especially interesting about this particular sample set is that we have three different results:

  • Griselbrand still has a TCGPlayer market price well above the actual going rate of the cards. This is almost assuredly due to the small number of transactions including copies of the card since the odd purchase.
  • Jetmir's Garden's TCGPlayer market price has essentially crashed back down to what it normally would have been due in large part to the higher transaction volume as it averages back down to reality when the sample size is large.
  • Temple of Enlightenment has also seen its TCGPlayer market price return to normal likely due to the retraction of the sale.

This is not the first time these inflated market prices have been shown on MTGStocks because of such a transaction on TCGPlayer. That makes it valuable to us to understand why those transactions occur at all. So, why would someone pay 10x the going rate on a card when there were plenty of cheaper options?

Possible Explanations

Accidental Purchase

It is possible that the buyer had placed cards in their cart a while ago, and the seller for whatever reason massively increased the price of the card. Or maybe the buyer wasn't 100% in their right mind at the time of the purchase.

Software Issues

Perhaps, for some reason, the cart optimizer failed to operate properly, if the buyer happened to use it. It also seems possible, though unlikely, that someone ordered a card on TCGPlayer Direct, and the original buyer didn't have the card and was forced to purchase the next best option, though this seems like an extremely unlikely occurrence.

Confusing Foil vs. Non-Foil

Originally I thought that perhaps the Griselbrand order was for foil copies that were mislabeled via the TCGPlayer software, or possibly they were picture sales and the buyer could see they were foils. However, that explanation doesn't account for the other cards included in this sample.

Purposeful Market Manipulation

I will emphasize that Quiet Speculation strongly condemns any form of market manipulation and has banned people for pushing attempts. It should also be pointed out that many attempts to corner the market on a given card have often ended very poorly for the manipulator. All that said, I do believe this to be the most likely hypothesis. While I could understand accidental purchases on a very rare occurrence, the fact that we saw these massive jumps in a few weeks' time implies more nefarious intentions.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Mass Manipulation

It is important to keep in mind that I do not know TCGPlayer's market price algorithm, so I do not know if it adjusts back when an order is canceled. The fact stands that the Temple of Enlightenment purchase has been removed, and the TCGPlayer market price now appears to be back in line with what one would expect given the current listed inventory and recent sales history.

Which brings us to why someone would want to manipulate the TCGPlayer market price of a card. Currently, I can only think of a few possible explanations. One obvious, if disheartening, use is to abuse another person's lack of knowledge regarding TCGPlayer and take advantage of them. Many players trade at TCGPlayer market price, as most trading apps use that price by default. I could see a situation in which someone overprices cards on a store, buys the cards to spike the price, and then trades off the cards to unsuspecting people. The flaw in this theory is that typically it takes time for the TCGPlayer market price to adjust, so this would have to be done in advance. There is also difficulty in knowing which cards the unsuspecting person needs unless the trades are taking place in the future.

Another possible but less likely situation: someone claiming damages to an insurance company and manipulating the price to inflate the damage claim value. While plausible, the fact that this only occurred with just a few random cards over multiple weeks would tend to imply that this is not very likely.

I fear the most likely scenario is someone taking advantage of a buylist that they know adjusts to TCGPlayer market pricing. The reason I see this one being the most plausible is that it would make some sense to spread out the spikes over time, so as not to alert suspicion of the buylist manager.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Feasting Troll King

Of course, these spikes could have been done as someone simply trolling the MTG finance community.

Protecting from Manipulators

While I don't know the person responsible for these purchases, I do get the feeling that these were done with purpose and ill intentions. To close things out, I'll offer some advice for anyone hoping to beat these market bullies.

I would suggest that anyone who automates their buylist to TCGPlayer market price be cautious and diligent when reviewing buylist submissions, and flag cards whose value seems significantly out of place. I would also recommend that anyone who does a lot of trading using the apps that reference TCGPlayer market price review the sales history when something looks out of sorts. Knowledge is power, and TCGPlayer offers us plenty of it if we can be bothered to look!

Adam Plays Magic: Gladiator Esper Reanimator

Posted on by Adam Cohen

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You read that right! This week, in celebration of Gladiator coming back to Arena as part of an all-access special event, we're doing a spotlight on the format with Esper Reanimator. Now you may be asking yourself...

What is Gladiator?

Gladiator is a 100-card singleton, best-of-three format with no sideboard that utilizes the entirety of the Magic Arena card pool. If it's in the client and isn't part of a very small ban list of Oko, Thief of Crowns, Teferi, Time Raveler, Nexus of Fate, Field of the Dead, or Natural Order, it's fair game. That means the digital-only Alchemy cards are also in the format. For rebalanced cards, only the true-to-paper version is legal.

Back to that entire Arena card pool bit—in addition to all Standard-legal expansions since Ixalan, cards added through Jumpstart, Historic and Explorer Anthology expansions, and any other special sets are available. Even though New Phyrexia isn't on Arena, we still get access to splashy bombs like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Cards like Faithless Looting and Channel that are banned in other formats are fully available to abuse too.

For those interested in playing outside of the all-access event, pickup games and tournaments are organized through the official Gladiator Discord server.

Why is Gladiator?

As I mentioned above, the format is singleton, so no more than one copy of any non-basic land card unless otherwise specified such as Rat Colony. Just like with Commander, this gives a lot of self-expression in deckbuilding, but has a more competitive lean and doesn't start with free extra cards. It's you, me, and a seven-card starting hand the way Richard Garfield intended.

Due to the inherent randomness of a 100-card format, players often have to get creative and dig deeper to find a critical mass of certain effects, allowing for a more novel gameplay experience. For example, a BW deck would of course first go for Godless Shrine, followed by Concealed Courtyard, Isolated Chapel, and Shattered Sanctum for its mana base. In Pioneer, a few copies of each of these and a few basics would be plenty. For Gladiator, we're digging deeper with options like Thriving Heath and Thriving Moor.

This extends to spells as well. For a Mono-Black aggro deck, expect to see Tenacious Underdog, but also Skyclave Shade, Razorlash Transmogrant, Scrapheap Scrounger, all the way down to the sixth or seventh best version of that particular effect so that the deck achieves the necessary density to make its game plan work. Restriction breeds creativity, and letting obscure cards take the spotlight is a refreshing take on the game. Notably, it also keeps overpowered cards from being too prevalent, allowing the ban list to stay relatively small.

Who is Gladiator?

(I'm really stretching this bit to make these subheaders work.) There are tons of viable archetypes in the Gladiator format and plenty of room to brew. From aggro, to combo, to control, the world is your oyster.

This time around, I'm playing Esper Reanimator, a deck that I've been enjoying for a few years and that keeps getting some nice upgrades. Cards like Tainted Indulgence, The Cruelty of Gix, and Phyrexian Fleshgorger keep adding consistency and flexibility while contributing to a necessary critical mass of payoffs and enablers.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Phyrexian Fleshgorger

In addition to the A+B game plan of reanimating a big creature from the graveyard, much of the rest of the deck is dedicated to interaction. Thoughtseize, Swords to Plowshares, and Counterspell are all multi-format all-stars that are available in the format and have a home in this deck. They're accompanied by board wipes like Extinction Event and midrange threats such as Junji, the Midnight Sky that can bridge the gap between stopping the opponent and hard-casting reanimator targets when the combo doesn't quite line up.

I'm a big fan of this archetype marrying a control-style deck answering anything and everything the opponent tries to do with its own proactive combo. It threads the needle between sitting back behind countermagic and closing out games in short order, giving the opponent little recourse and determining the pace of the game.

I do want to emphasize that the format isn't a bunch of control slugfests. Archetypes like Red Deck Wins, Death and Taxes, Bant Blink, and the Thassa's Oracle-Tainted Pact combo are all alive and well, as are a plethora of other options. Find what resonates most with you and play it!

The Deck

Gladiator Esper Reanimator

Artifacts

1 The Celestus
1 Key to the Archive
1 Portable Hole

Creatures

1 Citystalker Connoisseur
1 The Scarab God
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Agent of Treachery
1 Waker of Waves
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Scholar of the Lost Trove
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Champion of Wits
1 Koma, Cosmos Serpent
1 Murderous Rider
1 Young Necromancer
1 Golos, Tireless Pilgrim
1 Dream Eater
1 Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant
1 Priest of Fell Rites
1 Diviner of Fates
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Phyrexian Fleshgorger
1 Junji, the Midnight Sky

Planeswalkers

1 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 Kaito Shizuki
1 Liliana of the Veil

Spells

1 Dark Ritual
1 Rona's Vortex
1 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Faithful Mending
1 Unburial Rites
1 Bone Shards
1 Chart a Course
1 Thirst for Discovery
1 Counterspell
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fatal Push
1 Power Word Kill
1 Infernal Grasp
1 Heartless Act
1 Late to Dinner
1 Doom Blade
1 Chemister's Insight
1 Radical Idea
1 Languish
1 Extinction Event
1 Edgar's Awakening
1 Tainted Indulgence
1 Assemble from Parts
1 Consider
1 Undercity Plunder
1 Duress
1 Demonic Bargain
1 Grim Tutor
1 Graveyard Shift
1 Bind to Secrecy
1 Go for the Throat
1 Legions to Ashes

/Enchantments

1 The Cruelty of Gix

Lands

1 Castle Locthwain
1 Plains
1 Raffine's Tower
5 Island
3 Swamp
1 Castle Vantress
1 Thriving Moor
1 Thriving Isle
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Deserted Beach
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hengegate Pathway
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Brightclimb Pathway
1 Concealed Courtyard
1 Godless Shrine
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Shattered Sanctum
1 Clearwater Pathway
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Fetid Pools
1 Port of Karfell
1 Shipwreck Marsh
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Watery Grave
1 Hall of Storm Giants
1 The World Tree
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
1 Forsaken Crossroads
1 Underground River

End Step

I cannot understate my love for the Gladiator format. I hope this all-access event introduces more people to the format. Getting a permanent queue on Arena would be a very welcome alternative to traditional tournament Constructed formats and Historic Brawl, which hasn't been my favorite as of late. Let me know your new Gladiator brews on Twitter at @AdamECohen or on Hive at @AdamCohen. As always, leave a comment and suggest a new deck for me to play. It might just end up on the next Adam Plays Magic. Catch you next time!

Natural Results: Regional Championship Analysis

Posted on by David Ernenwein

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It's been... wow, almost three years since last I analyzed the results from a major Magic weekend. The entire environment of tournament Magic has changed in that time. Where I used to report on Star City Tours, Grands Prix, and the occasional Pro Tour, I'm now limited to Regional Championships (RCs). The pandemic has done a number on everything. That said, Regional Championships are currently ongoing, so let's dive in and see where Pioneer is headed.

Note that at the time of writing, the results I have to work with are the Atlanta, Sao Paulo, and Sofia Championships. Results for the weekend's Pacific region championships were not readily available. There's nothing about them on the official Wizards site, and Google gave me info sheets, but not tournament coverage. I know a few snippets from Twitter, but that's all. I'm going to skip over that partial information and focus on the more complete data.

Disclaimer #1: Avoid Reading Too Much

As long as I'm doing disclaimers, here's a big one: don't read into these results too much. This goes for the results I'm covering today as well as the rest of the Regional Championships. It isn't that I don't trust the results or that the events aren't useful. The problem is that the data isn't truly random, and therefore isn't fully valid.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Full validity requires a large sample size and data representative of the total population. The first condition is not a problem. The Atlanta Championship alone had 923 players. That's more than a lot of Grand Prix in 2019.

However, this isn't truly representative data. The problem is that the RCs aren't open events; they're invitationals. An open event is an opportunity for any player to be represented, and is therefore more representative of every player. These RCs are only representative of the spikiest of players who won their invites. Therefore, the data I'm working with is representative not of the overall population, but of tournament grinders specifically.

Disclaimer #2: There Was Metagaming

The other thing to keep in mind is that there were a lot of strongly held beliefs about Pioneer's metagame going into these events which definitely affected player choices. In addition to a crescendo of the usual "Pioneer Sucks" vs. "Pioneer Rocks" activity, there was a ton of chatter on decks being utterly unplayable vs. hopelessly broken.

While I cannot say how all this chatter affected player choices, it certainly did, because players were constantly tweeting about changing their minds as the perceived metagame shifted. I can't quantify this effect, but it does warrant mentioning.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Arclight Phoenix

Also, remember that all this data came from a single weekend. It represents what the players of several regions thought about Pioneer at the time and for the purpose of a single, large tournament. That isn't necessarily indicative of what is currently happening ahead of other RCs or of what happened this past weekend.

Comprehensive Data

Alright, enough disclaimers, and on to the actual data! I had intended to gather all the data myself, but as it turned out I didn't need to. Frank Karsten already did everything I was going to do and a whole lot more for Wizards. I assume that he's got actual programs helping him count up the match wins for his winrate calculations, because I can't fathom doing that otherwise. Well done sir and thank you. I'll go through the population data first, then the win rates.

The Big Green Elephant

First things first: Mono-Green Devotion was almost 21% of the field. That is both unsurprising and very surprising. Unsurprising because Devotion has been the assumed default best deck in Pioneer for some time now. Less so because according to the social media chatter, it should have been higher. I recall some claiming that Devotion should be 50% of the field and all the Top 8. While obviously hyperbolic, it does show how big a shadow Devotion casts over the format, both in reality and in players' minds.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Cavalier of Thorns

What is more interesting is that Devotion's metagame share in these three RCs is significantly higher than its actual share. At the time of writing, Mono-Green Devotion is 16.3% of Pioneer according to MTGGoldfish and 12% on MTGTop8. Which looks suspiciously like all the predictions of Mono-Green's domination were accurate. Again, this is an invitational event for spikes, so it does make sense for many to be on the presumed best deck.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Karn, the Great Creator

However, that may be deceptive. Many might have chosen Devotion for that reason, but it may also have been the deck that got them there and the only one they were comfortable with. This is an invitational that players had to win an invite to, after all, and if the deck was good enough to get there it's probably good enough to run. Trying to audible to an unknown deck is usually a bad idea, after all. Thus, Devotion's specific metagame share isn't all that meaningful.

An Indicative Metagame

However, it does fit into the overall picture of this RC metagame quite nicely. According to Frank's data, the Top 5 Pioneer decks at the RCs were Devotion, Rakdos Rock, Izzet Phoenix, Mono-White Humans, and UW Control. Both Goldfish and Top8 have these the exact same decks as the Top 5 too, though Top8 has Rakdos above Devotion for the top slot. Additionally, ignoring differences in specific metagame share, the overall metagame from each source looks similar. This strongly suggests that thanks to the high population of the three events, they were ultimately able to accurately model the metagame.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Bloodtithe Harvester

However, that is a bit deceptive. There were huge differences in results between each tournament. It is only thanks to aggregation that it ended up looking similar to the "real" metagames from the websites. For example, Devotion was 21.9% of the Atlanta RC but only 15.8% in Sao Paulo. I don't know what it did in Sofia, but it had to have been around 25% for the overall field to produce a total metagame share of 21%.

Thus there were enormous, but compensating, regional biases present in the data. If the Pacific RCs' data were available, it would throw off the metagame picture. I don't know how severe the shift would be, but it would be a very different look.

Metagame By Win Rate

What is more interesting is that Frank has provided the numbers on each deck's win rate. I don't do win rates because 1) the starting field data is usually unavailable, so I only know that Top 32 deck's win rates, which doesn't model anything about the overall field; and 2) many events only report standings, not records, making win rate calculations impossible. Frank had all the data from all the events (and a math PhD), so he could and did do them. And the results are unexpected.

Lotus Field Triumphant

The headline result is that Lotus Field combo had the best overall win rate of these RCs. This is surprising for a number of reasons. The first is that Field did so well despite not winning any event. In fact, it put exactly one deck into the Top 8 of Atlanta and nowhere else. A high overall win rate doesn't translate into an event win.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Lotus Field

The second is that Field showed up at all. Back when the new qualification system was announced, Field was considered a major player in Pioneer. However, it has been declining steadily since then. I know that back in June there were at least three Field players in my local Pioneer metagame and now there are none. The deck is an awkward and slow combo to pull off and punishes mistakes. This leaves it as a fairly niche deck.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Archon of Emeria

However, that second point was critical to Field's success at the RCs. Field's combo is easily hated out, but players didn't expect it. Damping Sphere hits all aspects of the combo and can be played in any deck, but is also the most easily answered. Tomik, Distinguished Advokist and Archon of Emeria are more effective, but didn't see much if any play. As the only prominent pure combo deck in Pioneer, Field thrives mostly when players are unprepared. Now that players are aware that Field is still a deck, they'll have the hate in the future, and Field should decline.

Leading from the Bottom

Looking at the standings overall, what might be surprising to many is that none of the Top 5 decks from the population have exceptional win rates. Phoenix did the best at 53.3% and is in 7th place. The rest are in the middle of the pack with rates around 50%. Which isn't spectacular.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Resplendent Angel

In fact, all the best decks by win rate are mid-Tier 2 at best. Field was only 1.8% of the field while runner-up Selesnya Auras was a measly 0.5%. This shouldn't be surprising to regular readers of my Modern metagame articles. The top of the average power charts is always filled with Tier 3 decks, frequently low-placing Tier 3 decks to boot. Low-population decks tend to be run by enthusiasts and so their win rates are less likely to be dragged down by inexperienced players misplaying the deck, which is what kills the performance metrics of Tier 1 decks. Thus, an unexpected low-tier deck like Lotus Field Combo should do much better than the expected decks.

What Does It Mean?

Consequently, the win rate data doesn't actually measure what deck is best in Pioneer, just which decks performed best at the RCs. This is what I was alluding to above in the population data. Players were prepared for Mono-Green, and there are tons of anti-Devotion cards in players' sideboards. This fact, plus the high population, dragged down Devotion's win rate. The fact that Devotion did so well in a very hostile field is impressive.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Aether Gust

Ultimately, there is a reason that top-tier decks are top-tier. They have the power to fight through hate and players being otherwise prepared. Mono-Green did exactly that. Lower-tier decks face greater struggles, but can do well against an unprepared field. This is how Lotus Field performed so well yet didn't convert an RC. Win rates should never be read as hard indictors of which deck is best. What they are is indicative of what the field expected and prepared for.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Thoughtseize

On that note, it's also important to look beyond the overall win percentage to the specific matchups. Frank didn't include them in his article, but did tweet them out. This is where the disparity between overall metagame place and specific event win rates starts to make sense. Devotion's worst matchups were all from relatively low-population decks, while its matchups against the more popular ones were average at worst. Devotion was such a large proportion of the field that it couldn't avoid terrible matchups, and so its win rate tanked despite good placings overall.

Is Pioneer Healthy?

The big question after any large event is what it says about the format. Given all the buzz about Devotion prior to the start of these RCs, there's a decidedly mixed message. Devotion was a huge percentage of the metagame, but it didn't take up too many slots at the high tables (if the Atlanta data is indicative of all the events). There is a wide range of viable decks and the cost is low relative to Modern. Whether the gameplay is good is a matter of opinion, but the same is true of any format. Thus, overall, the data indicates that Pioneer is healthy.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Elvish Mystic

However, there is a problem that the data can't reveal. While I've never noticed it myself, there has been a chorus of complaints about Pioneer matchups being determined more by who wins the play or draw than by matchups. Even Pioneer's defenders are acknowledging the problem, which is present in all formats but seems particularly pronounced in Pioneer. I don't have much of an opinion on this myself, as I've never personally noticed it and nobody's provided data one way or another. However, if this known problem is uniquely bad in Pioneer, then that indicated that there is a deeper problem with the format that the metagame can't fix. I'll keep an eye on this issue.

Proceeding as Expected

Ultimately, I don't think the data coming from the RCs will change anyone's mind about Pioneer, nor will it greatly shake up the metagame. However, it is comforting to know that Pioneer's metagame does appear able to keep even its best decks in check. Hopefully, the first set of RCs is indicative of how the rest will go, and Pioneer is as healthy as it looks.

Getting the Best of Blue in The Brothers’ War

Posted on by Robert Genuario

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It's not easy being blue.

The Brothers' War (BRO) is a format that can be hostile to slow decks as well as decks without removal. Blue comes up short in both departments. The color is not particularly aggressive, and the interaction leaves a lot to be desired.

You call these Answers?

Blue was nearly unplayable in some recent sets, namely Adventures in the Forgotten Realm (AFR) and Alchemy Horizons: Baldur's Gate (HBG). However, the color has far more to offer than it did in those limited environments. In BRO, blue is a support color, and while we shouldn't actively seek it out, when it is open for our seats, we need to know how to draft it.

This week, we'll be going through 17Lands recent trophy decks and analyzing how blue contributed to seven-win runs.

The Ugly Truth

One of the best reasons to get into a color is opening a singularly powerful card. Often times this occupies the rare slot, but this sometimes refers to high-powered uncommons. Unfortunately for blue, this color has only four total cards with a GIH WR greater than 60%.

These cards just do not get it done. The fact that Desynchronize and Machine over Matter are outperforming all but four rares and mythics is concerning. Additionally blue is the worst-performing color as a mono-color deck, with or without splashes.

Finally, as we look at the more traditional archetypes in the format, blue is a partner in two of the lowest performers. Of note, UR Spells and UW soldiers are performing at a reasonable rate. UB and UG are decks we should try and avoid.

While blue isn't particularly strong in this format, we're going to analyze what the best decks are doing to optimize the blue cards they see in the draft. For this exercise, 17Lands provides a running list of the most recent trophy decks. We'll only be looking at decks that began their run in Platinum ranks or higher. While it may not be necessary to note, know that it takes more than a good deck to win seven games. The pilot matters.

Splashing for Bombs

The first deck that we're looking at, is dipping into blue for more than just a slate of playable commons. The draw into the color is coming from some of those high-powered cards we discussed earlier.

Bant Rare-Fueled Grindathon

Creatures

2 Citanul Stalwart
1 Blanchwood Prowler
1 Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam
1 Scrapwork Mutt
1 Surge Engine
1 Argothian Opportunist
1 Scrap Trawler
1 Loran, Disciple of History
2 Scrapwork Cohort
1 Scrapwork Rager
1 Tocasia, Dig Site Mentor
1 Skyfisher Spider
1 Urza, Prince of Kroog
1 Boulderbranch Golem

Instants and Sorceries

1 Loran's Escape
1 Disenchant
1 Epic Confrontation
1 Machine Over Matter
1 Shoot Down

Artifacts

1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 The Mightstone and Weakstone

Land

1 Hall of Tagsin
4 Plains
4 Island
7 Forest

This deck looks like a real treat to pilot. Generating value off of Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam, Scrap Trawler, and Loran, Disciple of History is a powerful engine if we can stabilize. The double-Citanul Stalwart plan seems a little dubious, but this deck clearly got there and was able to take advantage of its high-powered endgame.

This deck introduces a common theme that we will see as we view the rest of the decks listed today. We don't want to get into blue for the commons. The card quality is not deep and if we're not seeing the top-end cards, blue won't be able to carry our deck.

Blue the Support Color

In these three decks, blue does what it does best in the format. It supports the plans of the other colors.

WU Soldiers and Powerstones

Creatures

1 Recruitment Officer
1 Yotian Frontliner
1 Air Marshal
2 Ambush Paratrooper
1 Harbin, Vanguard Aviator
1 Zephyr Sentinel
1 Third Path Savant
2 Yotian Medic
1 Scrapwork Cohort
1 Yotian Tactician
1 Koilos Roc
1 Tocasia's Onulet
1 Combat Thresher
1 Cityscape Leveler

Instants and Sorceries

1 Lay Down Arms
1 Loran's Escape
1 Stern Lesson

Artifacts

1 Key to the City
1 Veteran's Powerblade

Enchantments

1 Weakstone's Subjugation
1 Prison Sentence

Lands

10 Plains
7 Island

Blue adds some well-needed power to this aggressive white deck, capitalizing on soldier synergies. We see Yotian Tactician and Harbin, Vanguard Aviator supporting the go-wide Soldier theme. While the deck is almost all white cards, blue helps to provide the power boost at uncommon and rare to ensure this deck has the staying power to push lethal.

Bu Wurmcoil Control

Creatures

1 Gnawing Vermin
1 Evangel of Synthesis
1 Misery's Shadow
1 Zephyr Sentinel
1 Gurgling Anointer
1 Wing Commando
2 Trench Stalker
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Instants and Sorceries

3 Dismember
1 Dreams of Steel and Oil
1 Curate
1 Go for the Throat
1 Emergency Weld
1 Powerstone Fracture
3 Overwhelming Remorse

Artifacts

1 Mishra's Bauble
1 Chromatic Star
1 Soul-Guide Lantern

Land

10 Swamp
7 Island

This nearly mono-black deck looks to play a controlling role, ending the game with Wurmcoil Engine and double Trench Stalkers. These lifelinking threats are great for turning the corner for slower decks, however, having access to blue for Curate and Evangel of Synthesis helps to activate the lifelink on those creatures more consistently. When we're deep in one color, we don't need a lot of support from a second color. In instances like this, dipping into an underdrafted color for a few cards can be a huge opportunity.

UR Blast-Runner Aggro

Creatures

3 Combat Courier
4 Goblin Blast-Runner
1 Scrapwork Mutt
1 Zephyr Sentinel
1 Penregon Strongbull
1 Wing Commando

Instants and Sorceries

1 Mishra's Command
2 Machine over Matter
1 Excavation Explosion

Artifacts

1 Mishra's Bauble
2 Energy Refractor
1 Levitating Statue

Enchantments

2 Weakstone's Subjugation
2 Mightstone's Animation

Land

8 Island
9 Mountain

To the untrained eye, this might appear as a UR Spells deck. However, it boasts four copies of Goblin Blast-Runner. This one-drop has been a catalyst for many of the most aggressive decks in the format. Last week, we spent a lot of time discussing blue's top common, Combat Courier. The two one-drops play nicely and it's blue, not black, that is activating the extra power and menace on the goblin in this deck. This aggressive approach is supported by some of blue's cheap interaction and a couple of Mightstone's Animation at the top of the curve.

The Best Blue Decks - UR Spells and UW Soldiers

The seeded archetypes that blue should be proudest of are UR Spells and UW Soldiers. But as we identified in our preview guide, these archetypes really live at uncommon and rare. We can't turbo-charge these archetypes unless we open the few cards specifically worth building around. Fortunately for these players, that wasn't a problem.

UW Soldiers

Creatures

1 Combat Courier
1 Spectrum Sentinel
2 Survivor of Korlis
2 Air Marshal
2 Ambush Paratrooper
1 Harbin, Vanguard Aviator
1 Phalanx Vanguard
2 Skystrike Officer
2 Wing Commando
1 Yotian Medic
1 Yotian Tactician
1 Hulking Metamorph

Instants and Sorceries

1 Loran's Escape
1 Recommission
1 Deadly Riposte
2 Scatter Ray
1 Stern Lesson
1 Urza's Rebuff

Enchantments

1 Weakstone's Subjugation

Lands

7 Plains
8 Island

Double Skystrike Officer, Harbin, Vanguard Aviator, and a Yotian Tactician are signs that UW Soldiers was wide open. We don't need an excuse to get into these archetypes and when they're open we should treat them like realistic options even without the embarrassment of riches we see in this pool. This deck leverages its lords with a number of one drops to be as aggressive as possible. As a support color, blue doesn't offer many aggressive creatures, but in this deck, it borrows nicely from white to build an aggressive game plan.

Triple Iconoclast UR Spells

Creatures

1 Fallaji Archaeologist
1 Roc Hunter
3 Third Path Iconoclast
1 Thopter Mechanic
1 Third Path Savant
1 Scrapwork Cohort
1 Keeper of the Cadence
1 Tyrant of Kher Ridges

Instants and Sorceries

2 Machine Over Matter
1 Whirling Strike
1 Urza's Rebuff
1 Desynchronize
1 Unleash Shell

Artifacts

1 Springleaf Drum
1 Elsewhere Flask
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Levitating Statue
1 Symmetry Matrix
1 The Mightstone and Weakstone

Enchantments

1 Bitter Reunion

Planeswalker

1 Saheeli, Filigree Master

Land

1 Fortified Beachhead
1 Plains
7 Island
7 Mountain

The headline here is triple Third Path Iconoclast. Both that uncommon and the colorless Levitating Statue are great reasons to be in this archetype.

UR Spells

Creatures

1 Combat Courier
1 Ashnod's Harvester
1 Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam
1 Horned Stoneseeker
2 Scrapwork Mutt
1 Third Path Iconoclast
2 Penregon Strongbull
1 Reconstructed Thopter
1 Third Path Savant
2 Wing Commando
2 Koilos Roc

Instants and Sorceries

1 Brotherhood's End
1 Excavation Explosion
1 Involuntary Cooldown

Artifacts

1 Mishra's Bauble
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Mazemind Tome

Enchantments

1 Weakstone's Subjugation
2 Mightstone's Animation

Land

8 Island
8 Mountain

This UR Spells deck goes a little bit bigger. It takes advantage of Koilos Roc and Mightstone's Animation to close out games. While this deck doesn't have the triple Third Path Iconoclast or double Skystrike Officer, the high card quality and powerful card advantage engines for the end game can close out games while presenting threats at lower rarities.

In these decks, we see more of the blue commons. While they're not the most powerful individual cards, they help us to round out powerful decks. If we're relying on blue as the main color, we need to anticipate that some of our cards will be a little bit weaker. We need to ensure that those cards help to facilitate our plan, because they certainly don't make for stand-alone all-stars.

Battery Bearer Proof of Concept

UG Ramp is the least productive archetype thus far in BRO. We need the ramp, the payoffs, and a way to survive into the late game. Once there, we need to make sure we have the card advantage to win. These two decks have all of those pieces while using the signpost uncommon to live the UG Ramp dream.

UG Ramp - Midrange

Creatures

1 Alloy Animist
1 Combat Courier
2 Argothian Sprite
1 Thopter Mechanic
2 Argothian Opportunist
1 Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea
1 Third Path Savant
1 Battery Bearer
1 Hoarding Recluse
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Autonomous Assembler
1 Self-Assembler
1 Keeper of the Cadence
1 Boulderbranch Golem
1 Rust Goliath

Instants and Sorceries

2 Epic Confrontation
1 Gaea's Gift
1 Stern Lesson
1 Urza's Command

Enchantments

1 Take Flight

Land

8 Island
9 Forest

UG Ramp - Control

Creatures

2 Citanul Stalwart
2 Blanchwood Prowler
1 Zephyr Sentinel
2 Argothian Opportunist
2 Battery Bearer
1 Koilos Roc
1 Steel Seraph
1 Boulderbranch Golem
1 Cityscape Leveler

Instants and Sorceries

2 Gaea's Gift
1 Machine Over Matter
1 Excavation Explosion
2 Stern Lesson
1 Desynchronize

Artifacts

2 Mask of the Jadecrafter
2 Energy Refractor

Enchantments

1 Static Net

Land

7 Island
9 Forest

These decks have top-end threats to maximize the mana boost we get from Battery Bearer. They also get a lot of value off of Stern Lesson, as both decks need more than one top-end threat to win the game. The first deck is more midrange and threatens the opponent with powerful three and four-drop plays. The second deck is a little more all-in on the ramp strategy. The double Citanul Stalwart plan backs up the two Battery Bearers to race to the mythic threats waiting at the top of the curve, and it uses more removal to get there.

Going Blue for the Right Reasons

Looking at those decks, the following principles materialized as a road map for working toward a blue deck.

  1. Do not go into blue for commons. Some of the cards are individually fine, and investing in an open color may yield dividends late, but we really want to see rares and uncommons before we jump into blue as a central color.
  2. ...but it does not need to be the central color. If we find that a color is really open then cherry-picking premium blue cards is a good way to round out a strong deck.
  3. UR Spells and UW Soldiers are just good decks. While I'm still wary about committing to blue, if these decks look open, we can speculate on blue cards. The red spells pivot into other colors better than the white aggressive creatures (which only really pivot into red).
  4. UG Ramp is an archetype you can build, but Battery Bearer is not the sign we're waiting for. If we see premium green commons, expensive bombs, and blue cards of enticing power level, go for it. However, the data is concerning, and for good reason.
  5. In Dominaria United, we identified black and red as support colors. However, those colors added similar elements to most of the decks they touched. Essentially, red made the deck more aggressive and black made the deck more controlling. In BRO, blue's impact is more varied. It can help with card advantage and situation interaction. It has some tempo cards or can help boost our spell count for decks that care about that. Blue unlocks archetypes like draw-two or soldiers. In short, blue can do a lot of different things, it just isn't great at any of them.
  6. Of all the blue cards in the format, it's a small group of cards that show up in these decks. While this is only a snapshot of what blue can do in the format, there are only a couple of commons that show up consistently. Most are relegated to their niche archetypes.

Shine a Little Light

To close out our article today we're going to look at an unexpected uncommon. This card doesn't boast an impressive GIH WR (52.5%) and it has gotten more attention for what it does in Constructed than Limited. Still, I think the format has a spot for this oft-overlooked discard spell.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Dreams of Steel and Oil

Duress style effects don't typically thrive in Booster Drafts. Limited decks are less dependent on individual cards, and trading one for one, when we're paying the mana, isn't great. However, this card seems like a valuable tool in this format.

While it will inevitably be a horrible top deck at some point in the game, I still like its upside. Discard is typically a liability against aggressive decks, but because of how important the card advantage from unearthing is to those aggressive decks, we may find a window for this to be a meaningful two-for-one. Additionally, this can help snag a prototype monster or rare creature from our opponent's hand and exile matters.

Black struggles in this format because it can't keep up with the early aggression. While trading cards at a mana disadvantage won't help that issue, snagging an early play can disrupt our opponent's curve. Furthermore, black doesn't use its mana efficiently on early turns, making it less of a cost. This card may have a spot in the grindier black decks in the format, like UB Control, or even some versions of BR Sacrifice.

Magic 30: The Networking Aspect

Posted on by Sigmund Ausfresser

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Thus far, I’ve covered the Magic finance (buying, selling, vendors) experience at Magic 30 in Las Vegas and my personal tournament reports. They were my top two priorities for the weekend, and both were highly fulfilling.

That said, I did have another objective for the event: to meet and play fun games with as many of the people I’ve been networking with on Twitter and Discord over the years as I could. This extended to other finance folks, Limited experts, cosplayers, Magic personalities, Wizards employees, and anyone I recognized from the interwebs.

While I consider my selling endeavors and my tournament play highly successful (in that I had fun and achieved baseline goals), my socialization goals at this event were met only by pure chance. Allow me to explain.

Meeting Some Longtime Friends

For those who may not know, I’m fairly active on Magic social media platforms—particularly on Twitter and Discord. I’ve used both these platforms over the years to meet some really cool people and make long-lasting friendships both domestically and overseas.

I rarely attend large Magic events, so when I do it’s really important I try and meet face-to-face with some of the friends I’ve met online over the years. This time around, I had the opportunity to meet @lockheed and his wife, two friends I’ve talked with numerous times on Discord but whom I had never met in person. I try to keep my Discord channels to a maintainable minimum, but Lockheed’s group is a bunch of genuinely nice people who enjoy Magic and all things nerdy. Truly a crowd I feel at home in, even though I had never met the people in person before.

That changed at last! Lockheed and his wife were both extremely friendly and I am so happy to have finally met them in person. It’s fantastic to know that if I ever end up in their neck of the woods on the West Coast, I’ll have some friends in town to hang out with.

In addition to these connections, I also met with one or two other people I knew from Twitter but could finally say hi to in person. Honestly, though, things were so hectic that I really fell short in the networking department.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Natural Connection

Meeting Some Awesome Magic Personalities

Over the late October weekend, thousands of players converged in Las Vegas to enjoy this 30-year-old game. Among this group were a handful of Magic personalities I was particularly excited to meet.

For example, while walking through the convention hall I stumbled upon Zenaide Beckham (@ZBexx), a well-loved and respected Magic personality and cosplayer. She is my personal favorite and was the one cosplayer I really wanted to meet in person at the event. It was fortunate that she was dressed up as Serra the Benevolent so it was easy to spot her in the crowd!

ZBexx is such a positive force in the community, sharing her hard work in creating beautiful, realistic costumes that celebrate Magic. I like the vibe she gives off, and that rang even truer when we met in person. I thanked her for all she did, and she humbly turned the “thank you” around back to me, sharing how much she appreciated that I enjoyed her work! The Magic Twitterverse can often become a toxic environment, but ZBexx does a great job combatting that with her positivity.

Coincidentally, as I was walking up to ZBexx to say hi, I overheard someone talking to a guy nearby. As they stepped away, they called him Hunter Pence. Well, there’s only one Hunter Pence I know in the Magic community, the retired all-star baseball player. Sure enough, it was the same guy! I had to get my picture taken with him.

Hunter was so friendly it blew me away! You never know what you’re going to get when you walk up to a celebrity of sorts and ask to have your picture taken with them. He didn’t blink an eye, and was happy to oblige with a smile on his face! Talk about being in the right place at the right time – I’m a fairly big baseball fan (it ebbs and flows) so meeting a World Series winner and four-time all-star was really exciting. I only wish I had the courage (and time) to challenge him to a game of Commander.

Meeting MaRo

As the event was winding down Saturday evening, my final day on site, I received a notification on my phone from the Magic 30 app. The alert said that I had just an hour or so left to meet Mark Rosewater in person for a signing! Well, I didn’t even know he was doing this!

There was an error retrieving a chart for Maro

It turns out the Mark Rosewater meet-and-greet wasn’t in the main convention hall. This notification informed us that the location was on some terrace on the umpteenth floor of another building. My co-worker (whom I hung out with a good bit Saturday) asked around and we managed to find the location. We had to exit the building, walk across a paved courtyard to another building, and head up to the right floor in order to find Mark.

While there, we found numerous people playing casual games of Magic over some snacks and drinks. I remember thinking to myself, “If I didn’t have to focus so much on selling cards at this event, I would have loved to have hung out here myself.” Alas, there was no time.

I promptly walked over to the terrace and there was MaRo! I suspect many people didn’t even know this meet-and-greet opportunity was taking place (I certainly didn’t know) because there was basically no line! I walked right up, shook hands with Mark, and gave him my playmat to sign!

As a long-time player and dedicated fan of Magic, it was truly an honor to meet the man behind many of the sets and cards I’ve come to love over the years. I am a fan of Un-sets, particularly, and I get the sense that MaRo and I enjoy Magic in some similar ways. He asked me how long I had been playing, and when I told him since 1997 he sounded impressed.

“Wow, that’s a long time,” he commented.

“Not as long as you have, though,” I replied.

If the game came out in 1993, though, then the difference in our years with the game can’t be that large. He was kind to point that out.

The Missed Opportunities

There were so many other people I had hoped to meet and play Magic with whom I did not get the chance to find at this event. In general, Magic 30 was not conducive to spontaneous meet-ups. The shortage of tables was a real barrier the entire time I was there. Sure, it was easy to tell someone a table I was playing at during an event when I had a specific table number—but then I was in the middle of a tournament, so I couldn’t exactly socialize.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Opportunity

When not playing in tournaments, seating for fun games of Magic with friends was at a major premium. There were also so many activities going on at one time that meeting someone nearby was often pure luck. What if I was trying to meet someone while they were simultaneously near the main stage watching the latest presentation? We would never know, and would completely miss each other. I’m sure this happened on more than one occasion.

Even though I was able to hang out with Lockheed and his wife Saturday morning before the doors opened, I had a feeling it would be difficult to reconnect at the event once we parted ways. Sure enough, I walked towards the vendors while Lockheed went elsewhere to start the event and we didn’t see each other again despite numerous communication attempts. Unless two people happen to be doing something similar at the same time, it was just really difficult to coordinate spontaneous meetings. This is my largest critique of the event.

Wrapping It Up

I’m glad I had the opportunity to meet some cool, friendly people in the Magic community. From long-time friends to well-known cosplayers and all-star baseball players, I had the chance to talk with an impressive group of individuals who make this game special.

My only regret was that I was so caught up in my vendor grind—both covering for Quiet Speculation and selling cards for myself—that I couldn’t take full advantage of the social aspect of this event. With over 10,000 converging in Las Vegas to celebrate Magic, I would have loved to have met more than the handful I did. Because I didn’t deliberately prioritize the social aspects of the event, however, I do feel I missed out.

This is one of the only regrets I have from the weekend. It’s something I’ll dwell on some more as I think ahead to the next one. My next piece will be the final installment of my Magic 30 coverage series. I’ll focus on the biggest takeaways and how I would do things differently next time around! After all, the best way to ensure the next event is better than the last one is to grow and learn from our experiences.

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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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Generational Magic: Brothers’ War Roundtable

Posted on by Anthony Willier

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If you've been around Magic in any capacity, you've almost assuredly heard of Urza and Mishra, two brothers whose conflicted relationship changed their world and universe for eons. Through the game, these in-universe characters have carried over into many facets of our lives. One example is my friend, Benji, who was able to join his love for both huskies and Magic by naming his first pup Urza!

Urza the Huskie

Urza has since shuffled off this mortal coil, but as Benji's family increased, so did his pups'. Below, we have Urza's brother, Mishra, and more recently Avacyn and Kaya. Fortunately, this furry crew gets along much better than the brothers from the story.

Mishra, Avacyn, and Kaya

In honor of Benji's Magic-al and furry friends, I'd like to formally welcome you to:

I was able to meet with a few Magic veterans at HQ last week and share the scars of war. Specifically, Brothers' War. We discussed expectations from the set and how we each believe it will affect Magic in general. What do our battle-hardened players say this set will bring?

The troops after a hard-fought night of Magic

Introduce Yourselves!

Max: I've been playing for about fifteen years, and my all-time favorite card is Dragonlord Silumgar.

Justin: I've been playing for about ten years and my favorite card is Raging River. (I had actually touched base with Justin during my round four in the Dominaria United prerelease).

Matt: I've been playing for fourteen years, am an LGS employee, and my favorite and first card is Chub Toad.

What has stood out to you the most about Brothers' War so far?

Max: I've actually been surprised by the graveyard synergies. The flavor fits in well with the theme of apocalyptic war. Very World War I, where everyone's dying left and right with little regard. Troops and materials are being reprocessed and re-used to win the war.

Justin: I like how dynamic the creatures are. They seem more flexible and interactive with one another compared to other recent sets.

Max: I agree; it doesn't feel like either strategy overpowers the other. Going wide with the little guys or focusing on the big beaters are both viable options.

Matt: I've noticed many people seeing this set as a new Throne of Eldraine. My biggest issue with Throne of Eldraine was all the bans. Cards banned in every single format; the balance and design was all over the place.

With Brothers' War being an artifact heavy set I was worried, since artifacts have a greater potential for abuse. However, looking at the power level, I'm very pleased with the designs and don't foresee any bans coming down. The playability and gameplay also looks to be very enjoyable.

Is the Brothers' War winning or failing on the flavor scale?

Max: I feel it's winning. I started right after the Brothers' War storyline ended, so I wasn't that involved with it. Still, as I've played the game, and specifically this set, I started getting into it more. In essence, you have two hyper-geniuses that level a planet over a macguffin. The three meld cards are flavor home-runs. God-like iconic characters.

Justin: I don't think I can say it better. I'm not a huge flavor person and I don't delve too far into the storylines, but from everything I've seen, they did a good job honoring the original story.

Matt: I also don't get too into the storylines, but this being the most iconic storyline in Magic, I definitely was more involved with it. Working at the store I've seen people be more excited about the set, since I hear more people talking about it. It brings more people into the game because they remember playing with these characters 20-plus years ago.

How familiar are you with the original stories that we know from the Antiquities set, novels, and comics?

Max: I'm very into Magic lore, but this story is probably the one I know the least. Neither brother is what you'd call a "good guy," but one is less evil than the other. I think that sort of gray area piques my interest to learn more.

Justin: Again, I'm really not into Magic lore. The closest I got to reading up on Magic stories was during the Gatewatch era.

Matt: I'm generally familiar with the storyline, but just on a surface level. It does help to have a working knowledge when interacting with customers, though. For me it was the Weatherlight saga that captured most of my interest, so when a set like Brothers' War harkens back to that, I'll pay more attention.

Prediction: which cards will prove the most format-defining?

Max: I believe No One Left Behind could be a contender, possibly in Pioneer and Modern as well. Being able to grab a cheap combo piece for a reduced cost could be something.

Justin: If I had to guess, I'd pick Cityscape Leveler and Portal to Phyrexia. A lot of big mana decks will like those; Mono-Green Devotion in Pioneer, for example.

The Cityscape Leveler would be good to clean up any permanents that are causing problems. I do hope that these wouldn't become just more Karn, the Great Creator targets though. Some of the cards are solid, like Misery's Shadow. It's a really nice two-drop.

Matt: I'm not a Standard player myself, but I can see Misery's Shadow being good for the current Mono-Black deck that runs Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I'd love to see Urza, Planeswalker become something in the format.

I actually see Haywire Mite being playable against Urza's Saga in Modern. Its also an easy answer for various artifacts and enchantments in Legacy.

My personal hope is to see Kayla's Reconstruction for Mono-White Devotion in Pioneer. In an aggressive Solider deck, even if you only get three to four hits, that's pretty good value. I'd like to start seeing Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx played in the other colors and see Kayla's Reconstruction as a possibility to shake things up.

The set's best and worst mechanics?

Max: I've talked with a few others, and we all agree the best is prototype. Either option is almost never bad. For example, Combat Thresher. It always replaces itself and is beneficial in both small and large modes.

The worst for me is probably unearth. It's not a bad mechanic, but it's never resonated with me.

Justin: I agree with Max on Prototype. You can play it early if you need to, and yeah, doing so may not offer the best result, but it's still relevant. Casting a Blitz Automaton for its prototype cost is still worthwhile.

I actually don't like that meld was brought back. Not so much meld itself, but the fact that there are only three mythics that provide you a chance to use it.

Matt: Yea, in limited formats it's a real bummer when you open up half a meld card and won't be able to enjoy the fusion. Back in Eldritch Moon, you had multiple rarities that provided the opportunity, like Chittering Host. You can't get the same satisfaction here.

If you're ever able to Meld two cards together, and slam them onto the table as one huge card, it's the best feeling. You know you're having a good time when you're working just to fit it onto your playmat!

Justin: I do like meld, but I wish its execution would've been better. Giving people a chance to "do the thing."

Max: I agree on meld where now, we want to see more of it. Stop sprinkling it in and dedicate some space to it as a mechanic.

Matt: Think back to Unstable, with the host/augment mechanic. Currently meld is two specific cards. Maybe develop it to where you could mix and match with other cards to meld them together. Maybe where the top half could be the augment card, and the lower half would be the host card. Not sure exactly how it would work, but it would give players more options.

Matt: Making it unanimous, I'll agree; prototype is the best from the set. It's a fairly tame mechanic, but nothing in the set is too flashy. It does pair up well with one of my favorite things to do in Magic, Flickering. I've always enjoyed flickering morph cards and prototype cards fit right into that strategy.

What's your opinion of the Retro Artifacts in the set?

Max: Conceptually, I enjoy them. Very cool, and I appreciate the schematic artwork, like Mishra's Bauble. My only concern is that a couple of them are insanely strong in the limited format, Wurmcoil Engine being the largest offender. If your opponent plays that, they become heavily favored, and you get some feel bads.

If we look back to Strixhaven, the Mystical Archive cards all were good, but not overpowered. I would hope they lean more toward that in the future.

Justin: I've enjoyed them. Yes, there are a few offenders, but the majority of them are great. Mox Amber is a well-deserved reprint. It's not abusive and can be used if you have a lot of legends. There are, what, 50 or so Retros?

Max: There are 62, and I only know that because I'm trying to collect them (laughs from everyone).

Justin: Yea, there are 40 or so quality reprints, a few bombs, and a couple not-so-great ones.

Like, Mishra's Bauble for limited play?

Justin: Mishra's Bauble is actually an interesting limited card since there's a "draw two" theme in the set. I wasn't expecting it to be good, but there's potential for its inclusion depending on your deck.

Max: I was slightly surprised that Urza's Bauble wasn't in the set. I would've been cool to have both of them, since the set is about both brothers, right?

Matt: Yea, Mishra's Bauble has been reprinted, like five times, and only once for Urza's Bauble. It would've been a flavor win.

Matt: I do enjoy the Retro Artifacts, but my biggest criticism is that opening cards has lost its luster. I remember opening up a Garruk, Primal Hunter from Magic 2012, and even though it wasn't and isn't worth a lot, I was excited about it. Now, with Wizards printing so many sets with all of the special editions and treatments, they don't feel as cool. Borderless, Showcase, Gilded, Shattered, and the rest actually take away from the excitement of opening a pack. So much special, it's not special anymore.

Max: They could've printed them in a simliar fashion to the Transformers cards, where you get one in every ten boosters or something like that.

Matt: One thing I do want to applaud them on are the schematic numbered cards.

These feel special when you open one. Similar to the Masterpieces from Kaladesh. You get that awesome feeling in pulling something truly rare, and you will remember it. Getting something less often isn't always a bad thing.

How does Brothers' War stack up against other artifact-themed sets, like Mirrodin and Kaladesh?

Max: Mirrodin was the first set I ever drafted, so everything afterwards has a hard bar to reach for me. I do believe Brothers' War stacks up well overall. I didn't enjoy the Kaladesh block in general, because I felt there wasn't a lot of cohesiveness with the artifacts.

With Brothers' War, you have an artifact-based set, but the non-artifacts weren't pushed out. They were still important and you're not being drowned in the artifact theme.

Justin: There are more colorless cards in the set, but they stretch into the set better. I didn't get to play much with the other sets, a little with Aether Revolt, and it did seem heavily slanted to artifacts. You also don't have as much artifact removal, so Brothers' War feels much more balanced.

Matt: I would agree with that. I do feel that in comparison, this set is much more balanced. To go back to this topic, each of the other artifact sets, you have various banned and ultra-powerful cards. Blightsteel Colossus for example.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Blightsteel Colossus

I'm kind of biased on Brothers' War and the other recent sets. With the previous artifact sets like Mirrodin and Kaladesh, I was more involved and excited for them. For the Brothers' War prerelease, I wasn't ready for it. I was still enjoying the previous set, and with sets coming out so quickly, it's very hard to get amped up for it. I still played and had fun, but it was less exciting.

Prereleases have always been a special event for me and this prerelease was the first one where it wasn't. The past couple of years with COVID-19, Arena being popular, and other things have been factors, no doubt. Still, even with today being Brothers' War release day and the first chance to draft in-store, we only fired three drafts. Back during Kaladesh, we had seventeen on release night! I feel we've lost some of that magic that makes Magic awesome and need to get it back.

Which card are you most excited to play with?

Max: Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia. In my Two-Headed Giant event, we opened both halves. We were almost able to meld him, but our opponents stopped us. They even apologized for not giving us the chance to meld, but we understood since it would have brought about their demise.

Justin: Titania, Voice of Gaea. The meld part is awesome, and of course you have to go for that, but the card itself is very good. Her stats are great and I really enjoy playing a lands-focused deck.

Now Matt, if you say "Urza..."

Matt: Haha... no, no. My favorite card that I want to play in Brothers' War limited is Goblin Charbelcher. It's hilarious and so much fun, whether I'm pinging creatures or going to the face. I absolutely love it!

(Matt's co-worker Luke is beside me, giving a thumbs down sign.)

Luke: I was playing it in a limited event, activated it, and whiffed five times in a row. I was done!

Justin: Yea, I played it in a Two-Headed Giant match and we whiffed four times ourselves!

Matt: As you can tell, Luke's not a true believer in the Belcher. Outside of limited, I'd say the Young Pyromancer 2.0: Third Path Iconoclast. Pair them both together and you're going to town, especially with something like Mishra's Bauble.

Last question: Team Urza or Team Mishra?

Max: Team Urza! Only way to not be devoured by Phyrexia.

Justin: Absolutely, Team Urza.

Matt: Oooh, good question. I'm feeling Team Mishra!

Luke: I'd have to say Urza.

Epilogue

I want to thank the guys for providing us with their plans, directives, and excitement with Brothers' War. I hope you can join in on the glorious battle as well. Do you have any thoughts on what the battle between brothers may bring? Feel free to let us know either in the comments below or on Twitter.

Grateful, in Retrospect: Reviewing My Year with QS

Posted on by Joe Mauri

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Hello to all you Magic and, especially, Commander fans. It is I, Joe aka "Beardy," and it's that time of year when the U.S. celebrates giving thanks. It's fitting, then, that this date also marks my first year of writing with the QS team. So today, I'd like to talk about some cards, articles, and Commander topics I greatly enjoyed this year, and maybe some of my least favorites, too. But first, a special thanks to my team...

Without the help of my editors, I would be rambling even more than usual, and I would have a few significantly less inspired headlines. What can I say; I'm just not a titles kind of guy! Paul and Jordan have been nothing but helpful.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Frazzled Editor

To my fellow writers, I have enjoyed your content and learned something every day. I only dip into other formats a little here and there. I've been able to help others with their non-Commander format questions by cheating and simply getting great data from Adam, Robert and David.

Sometimes, even I run out of MTG fuel. Thankfully, Anthony always has an article to reinvigorate my love of the game and hobby. Finally, both David and Sig have offered numerous tips that have personally helped me as I've purchased collections, sought out speculative singles and vended at events. To the entire QS team, thank you!

The Heart of Commander

The article where it all began. Re-reading it a year later, has anything changed? Well, pack prices and power creep certainly have. Still, after many hundreds of Commander games, I can safely say that when players bring theme decks with heavy interaction, you get a very fulfilling gameplay experience. It's fun to show off your cards and get into crazy game states.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Jinxed Choker

One card I will highlight here is Jinxed Choker. It was a turn-two play one game and quickly circled around the table, accumulated a ton of counters, and dealt an astronomical amount of aggregate damage for just three colorless mana. Eventually it was I who "interacted" it away with a Blast-Furnace Hellkite. As a "thank you," I almost got to smash the donating Choker player for 20 damage, but then someone else removed my Hellkite! It's such interactions that keep Commander games lively, unexpected, and worth playing.

What I find most interesting about the situation is that The Brothers' War has a card that might recreate this sort of interaction all by itself: Slicer, Hired Muscle. Giving the gift of Slicer to an opponent is almost always going to be pure upside, and they cannot sacrifice him. We have finally found a Commander worthy of Flailing Soldier, and I believe I will make it a mercenary-themed deck with favorites like Soldier of Fortune to force someone to shuffle their deck... after they just shuffled. Yes, I am that kind of Magic player. This would be a mono-red deck that I could play casually, unlike my current Norin The Wary with too much land destruction.

But what if you could shortcut all that? What if, for three mana, you just skip the interaction, the game play, and simply end the game?

NOT the Heart of Commander

These two cards are responsible for ending more of my Commander games than any others this year, both competitive and casual. If Thoracle had a line of text that said "...if Thassa's Oracle is still on the battlefield, you win the game," then this card would be, I dare say, fair. You know, like Laboratory Maniac but for one less mana? Please, for the love of Pete, Commander Rules Committee, just ban Thoracle already! At least Consultation has the hefty drawback of potentially losing you the game.

However I noticed that in virtually every other non-Thoracle game, if a player had a Disenchant ready, most games would not end on the spot. That's good, and I agree with the Rules Committee when they say:

As far as cards are concerned, nothing has crossed the line into being dangerous enough across the broad spectrum of the format to warrant a ban. We’ll continue to keep our eye on hot-button cards, like Dockside Extortionist. If it or any other card creeps out of the corners of the format to have a large-scale negative impact, we’ll take action.

NOVEMBER 2022 QUARTERLY UPDATE

I still think that Dockside Extortionist is too good for Commander, but at least it itself does not end the game on the spot like Thoracle. The RC said they played at Magic 30. I wonder how many of those decks included Thoracle? Compared to other cards like Flash and Tinker, cards that need to stay banned, Thoracle is only a tiny bit worse.

A Year in Deckbuilding

I'm busy working on 32 decks. So far this year I have fully built, sleeved, shuffled, and played only seven of those 32. What happened?

There was an error retrieving a chart for Stoic Builder

Well, I built a Hamza, Guardian of Arashin and Kibo, Uktabi Prince deck for other people. I got a chance to play the Warhammer 40k pre-cons as well as the Brothers' War pre-cons. I purchased a couple of Magic collections and played some of their Commander decks, because why not? Finally, I purchased a Commander deck off eBay for around $12 and another from Offerup for $10 to test my hand at ultimate budget Commander. The result? A lot of fun for virtually no dollars.

Part of my goal with creating so many new decks was to make sure I was not just playing the same deck over and over again. In that regard, I succeeded beyond my expectations by bringing a new Commander deck every single week. This has greatly increased my appreciation of the format, because Commander has the most variety, the most spice, of every Magic format. However, that's only if you let it. Obviously competitive decks seek to be consistent and that idea is simply at odds with the idea of the format.

More than anything else I want to mention that the single biggest factor to enjoying my Commander games this year was showing up in person and playing! Yes, I know, difficult to imagine. Many weeks I agonized over card inclusions that turned out to be pointless. Showing up with literally any card provided both fun and data, which made refining a deck much easier. TLDR: Contaminated Aquifer is Underground Sea.

Cheers to Wizards!

I'm a Transformers fan and I couldn't be happier (well, I could have opened a foil shattered glass card, but didn't) with their representation in BRO. It's good to get to experience product that brings me joy. And even though they say "convert" instead of "transform" or "roll out" I still think the mechanic is spot on and well done.

Finally! A great counterspell with an awesomely thematic name everyone at the table loves to quote, even the person getting countered. An Offer You Can't Refuse is the kind of permission spell that is fair and needs to be replicated in the future. I've seen this card win games. I've seen this card lose games. Just a very cool card, all in all.

Food always bugged me as a "ho hum" mechanic. It seemed lazy and boring then, over-costed too. Enter the Monkey! Now your table can literally "go Bananas" with tokens that make sense and mana! This ties into the history of Magic with so many different Apes and Monkies over the years.

But here's the cheers part. Wizards has finally started to figure out the secret: bring synergistic, thematic, historical tribes together! There are now several examples of this over the years and it is a good sign for the many tribal players out there. Additionally, this allows me to make my friend who loves all things simian a completely functional Ape deck. Thanks Wizards! But it's not all good news....

Jeers to Wizards!

Unfortunately, Wizards has continued to leave a lot to be desired recently, and this year is no exception. I can remember quite clearly when they made the decision to have Kytheon, Hero of Akros not have keyword battalion ability for seemingly no reason. Alright, a weird design choice, but whatever. Then they followed it up with Tireless Tracker and decided a wall of text was more elegant than "Landfall—investigate." Wizards enjoys overly wordy cards, as Lagrella, the Magpie could just say "up to one other creature per player" instead of the nonsense printed on it.

But wait, what's that? Jodah, the Unifier could just say "legendary cascade" but instead has a wall of text. Wait, because it doesn't have a keyword ability, it doesn't work with other cards that exist like Averna, the Chaos Bloom. I mean it's not like Wizards printed a specialty card called Myntasha, Honored One with literal "booster cascade." Oh wait, they did!

Here's an idea: Vampires drink Blood, wouldn't it be interesting if you could sacrifice the Blood token to give a Vampire a +1/+1 token or use it to draw/discard? A lot of the Vampires in VOW had this ability tagged on, but why not put it on Blood itself? An obvious miss. Also, Odric, Blood-Cursed is one of the worst cards designed ever, let alone in the last year. Not only is it a hard to cast 3/3 with no abilities, but it also has both a comma and hyphen in its name. Wizards must get some kind of kickback from Merriam-Webster.

Now Who's Laughing?

It was easy to forgive Wizards when it was one to two cards per year. But now it's every single set. In their "infinite money printer go brrrrrr" speedrun, Hasbro has decided to leave out quality control for everything from card design to print quality. Gee, I wonder why they recently got downgraded by Bank of America? Please Wizards, tell them you can do better in 2023 by focusing on quality, not quantity.

Wrapping Things Up

Well, guess that's everything. Yup, nothing else I'm thankful for at all. Oh, wait a minute? Of course. Thanks to you, reader, and to everyone in the QS Discord as well. Without all of you I would certainly not be writing this article. But the thanks comes with a catch. What was your favorite article over the past year? Your least favorite? What do you want to see more of in the next 12 months? I'm itching to know. Be careful what you wish for; you may get it, especially if it's more Commander content!

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