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Milling About: Modern DMU Store Championship Report

Posted on October 21, 2022October 21, 2022 by Anthony Willier

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I've mentioned before that I'm usually up to play about any format, with drafting as my favorite. Drafting Unfinity is a lot of fun, but it can get old quickly. There isn't much interest in drafting Dominaria United anymore, and Brother's War is the soon to be new hotness. With many stores serving up Modern for their Store Championships I decided, with my son, to join in the fray.

^{Yes, Omnath, Locus of Creation looks like a four-armed booger}

Weapon of Choice

Before covid reared its ugly head, I would play a mix of Draft, Standard, and Modern on a regular basis. Since we've been able to get back to playing in person, my constructed formats have suffered. I've dismantled all of the decks and it's been easier to just draft instead. I also haven't been inspired by anything in the format, so that didn't help either.

Now, with Champs on the horizon, I had a reason to build, but still a lack of interest. Fortunately, low writer David Ernenwein piqued that interest with his article last week. Close to the end of the article, David expressed that a potential winner from the Yorion ban was Mill.

Tony's UB Mill

Creatures

4 Hedron Crab

4 Ruin Crab

Spells

4 Fractured Sanity

4 Tasha's Hideous Laughter

4 Archive Trap

4 Glimpse the Unthinkable

4 Drown in the Loch

4 Visions of Beyond

3 Fatal Push

1 Baleful Mastery

1 Crypt Incursion

1 Surgical Extraction

Lands

4 Polluted Delta

4 Watery Grave

4 Field of Ruin

2 Flooded Strand

1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

1 Otawara, Soaring City

4 Island

2 Swamp

Sideboard

3 Spell Pierce

2 Crypt Incursion

2 Damnation

2 Extirpate

2 Echoing Truth

1 Engineered Explosives

1 Soul-Guide Lantern

1 Ashiok, Dream Render

1 Torpor Orb

Prepping for the Event

I have some experience piloting the deck, but could I do so optimally? That was more uncertain. It's been around three years since I've played Mill, and over a year since my last Modern game. Still, there have been some nice updates to the deck with Fractured Sanity, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, and Drown in the Loch.

Along with presenting a hopefully decent tournament report, I posed a few Modern-esque questions to my opponents. I wanted to get a feel for their thoughts on the state of the Modern and related topics, since I'm sure they're more versed in the format than I.

Jarod and I arrived ready to get our game on. He decided to play one of the heavy hitters, UR Murktide. He's piloted it before with mixed results, but he generally enjoys the lines of play the deck provides. Unfortunately for him, he lost his first match against a top-decked Indomitable Creativity and ended up 1-2.

Round 1: Mark, Hammertime

^{Mark's Hammer tech: Invisible Stalker}

How long have you played Magic?
I started around Fifth or Sixth Edition. Sometime around 1998.

How much Modern do you play compared to other formats?
Mostly Modern. I play at least once a week, and fill in the gaps with Commander.

What Modern decks do you have experience with?
Quite a few. I played 4-Color Omnath before Yorion, Sky Nomad was banned. I've played a decent amount of UR Murktide, Yawgmoth, Burn, and of course, Hammertime. The decks I played the most over the years were Ponza and Storm, until Faithless Looting was banned.

Do you feel the direct-to-format Modern Horizons sets are good or bad for the format?
I believe there are specific cards that have been an issue, but overall, they have been good. I like that we've gotten more fetchlands through these sets. Cheaper and in turn more accessible fetchlands are great.

Are there any cards in Modern you feel need to be banned?
Me personally, no. For the health of the game, probably so. Wren and Six being one of them to take a close look at. He's just so good.

Any cards to unban?
I'd love to see Punishing Fire come back. If it came back tomorrow, it'd be in my deck today.

Has the constant deluge of Magic products affected your relationship with the game?
It hasn't really affected me a lot. Since my focus is very specific to Modern, I am only interested in a small section of these cards. I wouldn't see a problem with Wizards slowing it down somewhat, but much of what they put out now is very optional, like Secret Lair.

Which Magic products do you regularly purchase?
I'll grab a few standard rotation packs, like Dominaria United. Always happy to grab a couple Modern Horizons 2 packs, but mostly singles otherwise.

Are you planning on buying any of the Magic 30^t^h Anniversary product?
No. Personally I don't have a use for them. They look cool, but definitely not for me.

Match Details (2-1)

I got my mill on the first few turns, and three of Mark's Colossus Hammer hit the bin. Here my inexperience showed, because I had the Surgical Extraction in hand and wasn't sure if I should use it to grab the last one (hint: the answer was yes). Mark drew his last one right off the top the following turn, and without any removal, I was toast.

Still, at the end of it, Mark expressed his displeasure in having had to face Mill. He said Mill is very favored in the matchup. I didn't doubt him, yet did my best to not be on the receiving end of a very big stick. I sided in more removal, was able to resolve a couple of Tasha's Hideous Laughters, and took the next two games in similar fashion.

Round 2: Tony, UR Murktide

How long have you played Magic?
I've been playing since 2000.

How much Modern do you play compared to other formats?
I'm pretty exclusive to Modern. I'll hit a Legacy event every once in a great while, but Modern is it.

Which Modern decks do you have experience with?
I've been playing various UR decks since the format was created. One of my early decks was the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Pestermite combo deck.

Do you feel the direct-to-format Modern Horizons sets are good or bad for the format?
Personally, I think they weren't good for the format. Just within the two Modern Horizon sets, they greatly increased the power level and pushed out a lot of cards.

Are there any cards in Modern you feel need to be banned?
Currently, no. Nothing specific stands out.

Any cards to unban?
I'd love to see Mystic Sanctuary back.

Has the constant deluge of Magic products affected your relationship with the game?
Not anymore. I gave up trying to keep up with the various sets a while back, so I don't have any issues with it either way.

Which Magic products do you regularly purchase?
Strictly singles for my Modern decks.

Are you planning on buying any of the Magic 30^th Anniversary product?
No, since I only focus on Modern. Still, I know nobody has to buy it, but it feels really greedy.

Match Details (2-1)

Tony played a Dragon's Rage Channeler and quickly started taking three-point chucks out of my hide. Fortunately for me, I was able to fire off a bunch of early mill cards. I do believe that my first Tasha's Hideous Laughter exiled close to 30 cards! Gotta love these cheap mana decks.

The second game was very close and I would have been able to mill him out, but I had to play both Fraying Sanity and Tasha's Hideous Laughter. Unfortunately, I was at four and had to use Polluted Delta. He flashed the Lightning Bolt that I figured he had and we went to the next game.

This one down to the turn where if I didn't win, he would on the next. Tony had a Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, a Dragon's Rage Channeler, and a 12/12 Murktide Regent staring me down. Just like the last game, I had both Fraying Sanity and Tasha's Hideous Laughter in hand. The difference this time is that I was at nine and only needed one of them to resolve. I played the Fraying Sanity. Tony responded with Spell Pierce. I paid the two, and received the handshake.

Round 3: Shane, Affinity

How long have you played Magic?
I've been playing since 2015. My first deck was the Elf precon from Magic Origins.

How much Modern do you play compared to other formats?
I play Modern the most, with Commander a close second. I'll happily join in on the other competitive formats, but Modern is my main focus.

Which Modern decks do you have experience with?
I started with Gifts Storm before Modern Horizons came out. Switched to UR Phoenix, then enjoyed playing Elementals for a while. I then started playing Affinity because I borrowed it from a friend and loved it.

Do you feel the direct-to-format Modern Horizons sets are good or bad for the format?
I feel they were good. Modern is very diverse currently, many decks are represented. Still, most of the cards you're playing are just from those two sets. Definite power creep.

Are there any cards in Modern you feel need to be banned?
Abundant Growth. It lets decks stretch their mana to where you don't have to worry about color restrictions as much. In my opinion, that's not good for the format.

Any cards to unban?
I don't believe any cards need to get unbanned, but I would like to see Punishing Fire come back. With the current power creep, I don't see it being as detrimental to the format as it once was, and might open up more decks.

Has the constant deluge of Magic products affected your relationship with the game?
Not really, but I'm all for the amount of supplemental decks and products to slow down a little bit.

Which Magic products do you regularly purchase?
I mostly go for singles and going in on the most recent set, usually through Prereleases. With other premium sets, I'll buy a little less. Other than that I might buy a Commander precon every once in a great while.

Are you planning on buying any of the Magic 30^t^h Anniversary product?
(Shane laughing) No, not at all. Some people will want it. I won't. It's a definite money grab at that price point.

Match Details (0-2)

Not much to see here. Shane beat me pretty handily in the first game. I drew no removal, milled him a little, and died. The second game was even worse. I stalled at three lands and died with two Damnations and a Crypt Incursion in hand.

Stick Around...

Being taken out as quickly as I was, I had some time to relax, so I sat in the area where the Unfinity drafts had taken place the night before. I wanted to share a picture of something I noticed beside me:

Somebody lost their sticker! Of course, that's maybe to be expected during a fun draft. Who cares about the little stickers? The individual Unfinity stickers are quite tiny and can get anywhere. So, it did make me think about the logistics of using stickers in a more competitive environment. Could a sticker like the one above yield another Mike Long moment?

Round 4: Claudio, Mono-G Tron

How long have you played Magic?
I believe around 15 years, or since approximately 2007.

How much Modern do you play compared to other formats?
I'd say 95% of what I play is Modern.

What Modern decks do you have experience with?
I've played Dredge, Mill, and love Tron.

Do you feel the direct-to-format Modern Horizons sets are good or bad for the format?
Overall it's good. Before you would add maybe one or two cards per set that were viable, so it's nice to see more cards in the format. I do believe, in hindsight, there are certain cards that were a mistake, like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.

Are there any cards in Modern you feel need to be banned?
Nah, nothing specific.

Any cards to unban?
Deathrite Shaman. I don't even know if he would be that great in the current format, but I think he could be added back in. I know it's not realistic, but I'd love to see Golgari Grave-Troll unbanned again, because I love Dredge even more.

Has the constant deluge of Magic products affected your relationship with the game?
No. Wizards is churning out a ton of product, and I pay attention to anything concerning Modern, so personally, I only focus on a small part of it all. I don't get into them personally, but do like the Secret Lairs in general.

Which Magic products do you regularly purchase?
I'll play a rare game of limited, but I'm almost exclusively a singles buyer.

Are you planning on buying any of the Magic 30^t^h Anniversary product?
Not at all. It looks like its printed for a very specific sub-set of people, like Commander players with a ton of disposable income, but it's definitely overpriced. The fact that it's random packs is crazy to me.

Match Details (1-2)

I knew I was generally favored in this matchup. Being able to Surgical Extraction a Tron piece would take the game, and I could generally deal with Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. The problem cards were Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Karn, the Great Creator.

I took the first game pretty easily once I milled and extracted his Urza's Tower. He did get one of them on the board, but a timely Field of Ruin solved that issue. In the second game, Claudio was able to use Karn, the Great Creator to get a Witchbane Orb and stop me in my tracks. He then grabbed a Liquimetal Torque and started destroying my lands.

Here's where my inexperience and inattentiveness came into play. I was ahead, milling Claudio out. He played out Karn, the Great Creator and retrieved the Liquimetal Torque. When he went to play it the same turn, I was able to Spell Pierce it. I knew he would use Karn to get the Witchbane Orb next turn, so I had some concern being able to finish him out.

I had an Archive Trap in hand and was watching his plays, but I guess I lost focus for a moment. He took a chance, played Sylvan Scrying to get one more Tron piece, and passed. I drew my card and realized the missed opportunity.

Claudio then played the Orb, but also Ugin, the Spirit Dragon to wipe my crabs off the board, and I conceded. We counted out the cards left in his library.

Thirteen cards.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Archive Trap

Yea, that's a hard lesson. Fortunately, it makes for an interesting bad beats story!

Round 5: Scott, GW Hardened Scales

How long have you played Magic?
I don't know, about 10 to 15 years, starting sometime around Lorwyn. Most of my early years were kitchen table, but I've been playing Modern for around seven years.

How much Modern do you play compared to other formats?
I cube quite a bit with my friends, but usually play Modern, and Commander from time to time.

What Modern decks do you have experience with?
I played Affinity back before Mox Opal was banned. I transformed it into the deck I'm playing today. I also enjoy playing Mono-Green Devotion and when I want people to regret all their Magic choices, I'll play Martyr-Proc.

Do you feel the direct-to-format Modern Horizons sets are good or bad for the format?
Good, but there are concerns with the overall power level. The sets have definitely shaken things up. The elemental cycle was probably a little too strong.

Are there any cards in Modern you feel need to be banned?
No. There's always going to be a best deck, so you work with that.

Any cards to unban?
The artifact player in me says Mox Opal, but not really. I haven't thought much about it.

Has the constant deluge of Magic products affected your relationship with the game?
I don't buy a lot of packs unless drafting. I did buy a box of Modern Horizons 2, but mostly it's just singles.

Which Magic products do you regularly purchase?
Yea, singles. I do enjoy when they have things like the Mystical Archives from Strixhaven. I don't buy them for the most part, but I appreciate products like the Secret Lairs.

Are you planning on buying any of the Magic 30^t^h Anniversary product?
Nope. If I wanted to run proxies in my decks, I'd use much cheaper ones.

Match Details (0-2)

Top eight was almost certainly out of my grasp, but I wasn't too worried about it either way. Of course, I would have rather not made that egregious error last round, but Jarod was out of the tournament and we were both getting hungry.

Scott was running the other artifact creature deck featuring Hardened Scales and The Ozolith. We split the first two games, with me getting my mill on in the first, and him running me over with a huge Arcbound Ravager and friends in the second.

The third game was quite interesting, since I was able to answer the majority of his threats and Field of Ruin an Urza's Saga. I was feeling somewhat safe, until he dropped a few counters onto his Inkmoth Nexus and spread the infection.

The Echoing Truths in my hand were no help here. I did attempt to activate a second Field of Ruin on my turn, but he was able to turn the Nexus back into a creature and save it with Snakeskin Veil. Scott kindly gave me the official win, since he was planning on heading out for dinner, even though I was ready to do the same.

So What Place Did You Get, Really?

Without Scott's concession, I'm probably hitting dead center of thirty players. Still, I was able to do what I set out to do. Mill is definitely viable, especially against the cheap, low-to-the-ground decks. Getting to chat a bit about the state of Modern with my fellow players and playing some awesome games was a great time. Other than the Affinity match up, the games were interactive and interesting.

How did your Store Championship event turn out? Were you able to fight for the prize or bow out gracefully? Share your tales in the comments or on Twitter.

Under-the-Radar Commander Cards, October ’22

Posted on October 20, 2022October 20, 2022 by Joe Mauri

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It's time to talk about some hidden gems that you may want to try at your next Commander table. Let's begin!

Warcraft Isn't Just an MMO

The first card I want to discuss is Master Warcraft, a sleeper with incredible potential.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Master Warcraft

You decide who attacks, you decide who blocks, and if they even do. This is a situational board wipe and also a potential player wipe. It's impossible for you to die this combat, even if they have infinite creatures that are indestructible, hexproof or with protection from you, unblockable, etc. Merely a Fog for four mana, though, is not worth playing, and even though this card has been reprinted and put in a lot of Commander pre-cons I've never seen anyone use it.

However, the ceiling on this card is unbelievable. You can forge alliances, destroy board positions, completely ruin the plans of up to three other players simultaneously and ultimately take complete control of a game. The best part, of course, is that you don't even need a board state to do this... you just cast the spell!

It's even great if you happen to find yourself going up against three players. Casting a board wipe stalls your opponents, sure, but it reinforces them unifying against you. On top of that, you usually lose your board as well! Warcraft is significantly better here because you can use the other players to wipe their own boards, completely kill off attackers, or even gain an ally by sparing one of the players from a one-sided combat step. This is an impressive card that can handle a mind bogglingly high number of complex situations.

The Key to a Strong Deck

There was an error retrieving a chart for Manifold Key

Voltaic Key has always been a playable and well-known Commander card that has slowly been edged out by the massive number of new options. But Manifold Key is one of those newer options that is in surprisingly few decks. It's a diplomacy tool on top of being, generally, a great ramping artifact. A tricky, versatile, and just all-around excellent card, it's cheap and can go in a large number of decks. The ultimate backstab? Tell someone to attack and wait until they commit before not making their guy unblockable. It's removal (with extra steps)!

They Would Have Won, If Not for Your Meddling

There was an error retrieving a chart for Mizzium Meddler

Close to Spellskite 2.0, but with flash. It's effectively an interesting proposition that I have seen pay off spectacularly more than it fails. Most of the time, Mizzium Meddler eats a removal spell and dies. So at the bottom end, it's effectively a three-mana protection spell or a counter, which is not that great. However, sometimes it steals a bonkers-level effect. Some Auras can be snatched with this too; my best so far is Bear Umbra, which allowed me to untap my lands even though I didn't control the enchantment! With a moderate floor and a high ceiling, Meddler interacts with virtually all of the removal in the EDREC Top 100 and other unexpected situations.

Unbelievable Value for One Mana

There was an error retrieving a chart for Soldevi Sentry

A dude that says "let's make a deal:" Soldevi Sentry has proven surprisingly excellent at dictating combat. As a one-mana artifact that can go in any deck, the Sentry acts as a deterrent and diplomatic tool. As a Soldier, it also has a heavily-supported creature type. Is it one of the best blockers? No, because it doesn't fly or deal with trample. The real purpose is giving cards to your "friendly" opponents by blocking on their turn, attacking into them on your turn, and even eating "removal" to trigger the draw clause. It has synergy with many other deck archetypes as well such as Nekusar, the Mindrazer.

I Command You to Check Out These Cards

Prismari Command is unlikely to be that surprising, as it has hit the top 100 Instants. But that's the issue: it's just barely in at 100th place. This card is obviously good, but I feel like it's under-appreciated. Every mode on the card is solid, and picking two modes is crazy value. There is no situation where both modes won't be one of the best plays you can make. For three mana, it's an absolute bargain. Alternatively, you can use both modes to help another player by filtering their hand and giving them a Treasure. If you can't solve a situation, maybe another player can. Talk about flexible!

But What About Witherbloom?

Witherbloom Command is also really useful. Four different options that are relevant at all points in a game. Early on, the second option to blow up a noncreature, nonland permanent is the play likely followed by the -3/-1 option to clear a small creature. Late-game, getting back a land like Boseiju, Who Endures or a fetch land for landfall triggers has tremendous value. It's only two mana and it trumps a lot of the commonly played EDREC top 100. Give this flexible and cheap card a second look for your green/black decks.

Izzet My Favorite Guild? Nope!

There was an error retrieving a chart for Turn // Burn

Each half of Turn // Burn is reasonably priced and playable. Fused together, it deals with a lot of potential threats. There are several cards like Stifle or Trickbind that can stop a lot of situations, and they are cheaper than Turn.

However, they do not scale the same. Late game, your relatively cheap interactions tend to not be very useful. Burn certainly won't kill much of note either, late game, yet the entire card itself scales perfectly.

Another absolutely massive advantage is its interaction with cost reducers like Goblin Electromancer. Double value off reduction is strong. Of course, in some situations, you can Turn one creature and Burn another, giving you card advantage as well.

Death to All Enchantments

There was an error retrieving a chart for Reverent Silence

Enchantments are the hidden OP permanents of Commander games, and enchantment removal is sorely lacking in most decks. Well, have you seen Reverent Silence? Everyone goes crazy over other free spells, so why not a free enchantment wipe?

While the regular card price has stayed about the same, the foil price has crept up slowly and steadily. I'm also using it in my copy of Aeve, Progenitor Ooze as a storm count builder because you cannot beat "free" for storm!

Another Blast from the Past

There was an error retrieving a chart for Mystic Repeal

Sometimes killing something is pointless, as it will be recurred. But Mystic Repeal really removes any Enchantment for one mana, including indestructible things as well.

When Commander was new this saw a lot of play, but it's slowly been crowded out by other options. Not better options, mind you, merely other, newer options. The onslaught of powerful enchantments makes removal for them appreciate in value, and for one mana, Repeal is an excellent option.

A small number of cards reference the bottom of a deck. If that concept ever expands, Repeal could see significantly more play. There's also the rare situation when you can blank a Thassa's Oracle, too. Nature's Claim can never do that!

Fast Mana and Dual Purpose

There was an error retrieving a chart for Priest of Gix

A mana-neutral creature becomes, quite easily, a mana positive creature. Priest of Gix works with Jet Medallion or K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth or even Helm of Awakening to generate extra mana. On top of that, there are plenty of other interesting things for the priest to do, like be sacrificed to Deadly Dispute or Village Rites; that generate cards and even more mana through treasure.

But, of course, black now has so many cards like Undying Evil or Undying Malice or Feign Death that you can continue to generate advantage and mana for each time you re-use the Priest. This guy is a real Black Lotus.

Your Mileage (And Meta) May Vary

These cards all play well at my local stores, and no one on SpellTable has complained yet, although Warcraft has surprised a lot of tables and Sentry has left more than one person extremely salty when they were not getting free cards. Of course, Commander is a dish best served shared. What are some of your favorite cards that you think don't receive enough attention? Let me know in the comments!

Magical Creatures: Aetherborn, Azra, and Inkling

Posted on October 19, 2022October 19, 2022 by Francesco Spagnol

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Hello creature enthusiasts, and welcome back to Magical Creatures! In this series, we discuss every creature type in Magic that was created specifically for this game. It all began a few months ago with the criteria to follow when assessing creature uniqueness. From there, we tackled such creatures in small groups, sequencing them according to their set of first appearance whenever possible. In the last piece, we saw Rigger, Surrakar, and the notorious Eldrazi.

As I brought up at the end of that installment, over the past 20 years, there has been a steep decline in the creation of creature types unique to Magic. Indeed, today we'll have to move forward 6 years in order to find the next new creature! All those years between Rise of Eldrazi and Kaladesh produced none, so let's begin with an overview of this beautiful expansion.

Kaladesh and Aetherborn

Released on September 2016, Kaladesh is set on the plane of the same name: a plane whose atmosphere is saturated with aether. Packed with automatons and artifacts created as much for their beauty as for their usefulness, Kaladesh resonates with steampunk vibes. It's a world of inventors, and the birthplace of Chandra.

As for new additions, it was in this block that a new artifact subtype emerged: Vehicle, along with its keyword ability crew. What about new creatures? Kaladesh introduced a few, such as Pilot and Servo, but the only new subtype unique to Magic is Aetherborn. It represents humanoid, black-aligned creatures born of Aether. As such, Aetherborn is a race, and comes in several classes: Rogue, Artificer and Warrior.

All Aetherborn in this game (there are 16 in total) are black, with only one being both black and blue. They typically care about +1/+1 counters, as over half of them share a related ability. Another thing they have in common is mentioning artifacts, which is not unexpected in a block full of them.

Despite their having a lord (Midnight Entourage), 16 creatures is not many to choose from when it comes to building a competitive tribal deck. Nonetheless, if you ask me they are an interesting tribe, at least from the design perspective. They were short-lived beings, and therefore had a "free spirit and hedonistic lifestyle." Not a common trait among Magic creatures!

Battlebond and Azra

Flashforward a couple of years to the next creature type unique to Magic: Azra, introduced in the summer of 2018 with Battlebond. This weird set was the first in the history of this game to appear specifically as a Two-Headed Giant-focused booster set. It was designed to be drafted, and its cards were never allowed in Standard or Modern tournaments.

So, what does Azra mean? That's hard to say, but at least we can see from their illustrations that they are human-like beings with some demonic traits. I mean, they have horns and their skin ranges from purple to grey, but apart from that they look human enough. Azras may be based on asuras, a sort of demon analogue from the Hindu religion that's sometimes depicted as having bluish-grey skin. Their typical class is Warrior, but we also have an Assassin, a Warlock, an Employee and even a Ninja (the latter from Modern Horizons)!

As far as I'm concerned, the most interesting cards with this subtype are Kels, Fight Fixer and Virtus the Veiled, at least for their vaguely useful effects. However, their play remains limited to Commander.

Strixhaven and Its Tokens

Three more years passed without new creature types unique to Magic. The next set to host such creatures was Strixhaven: School of Mages. Released in April 2021, this set was based on instants and sorceries, which Mark Rosewater defined as a "very mechanical bottoms-up construction." Strixhaven introduced the Lesson spell type, as well as two subtypes unique to Magic: Fractal and Inkling. They are both mostly limited to tokens, a phenomenon increasingly common, as we saw in the past few installments.

Fractal

Fractal is a weird creature type, and technically I'm unsure whether we should consider it a subtype unique to the Magic franchise. The fact is, fractal is a concept borrowed from mathematics: it's a curve or geometrical figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Or, if you want to hear it in the words of Kianne, Quandrix Dean, "Fractals are just pseudo-dimensional manifestations of asynchronous biosymmetries. It’s really quite simple."

Therefore, their concept is not completely novel (as opposite to Myr, or Lhurgoyf, for instance). However, no other game or work of fiction that I'm aware of has ever repurposed this concept as a creature, which means it deserves at least a mention in the present series. The only card ever printed with this subtype is the legendary Esix, Fractal Bloom. That being said, 13 more cards are able to produce tokens with that subtype, so it's not as uncommon as it might seem. Fractals are 0/0 green and blue creature tokens, and thus they can only survive by holding +1/+1 counters or through less conventional means.

Inkling

Inkling is similar to Fractal, since both subtypes are mostly apeparing on tokens. They are funny beings made of ink magic, created by the students of the Silverquill College of Strixhaven. As such, they are small, black, and liquid, and only come in black and/or white. These tokens are 2/1 and have flying, which makes them a bit more interesting (and dangerous) then your average 1/1 vanilla token (as seen on Saproling, Pentavite, etc.). In my opinion, Inklings are funny little characters, and in fact do show up in some stories set at the Strixhaven school. If that's your thing too, do take a look at some of them!

A Shorter History and More Tokens

Today, we analyzed four creature types unique to Magic. That's a higher number than usual, but none of them were particularly notable or successful (unlike, say, last week's Eldrazi). That's probably due to two reasons.

For one, we are getting closer and closer to the end of this series, meaning these last subtypes to be discussed are quite recent in Magic and appear on few cards. Additionally, two out of four are only (Inkling) or mostly (Fractal) available as tokens, never a great sign for any creature type. Saprolings proved the sole exception to this rule.

Anyway, we only have one subtype left. Do you know what it is? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter, and stay tuned for the final chapter of Magical Creatures!

Times A-Changing: My Take on 30th Anniversary Edition

Posted on October 19, 2022October 18, 2022 by David Schumann

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When the announcement for Magic 30th Anniversary Edition came out, I was honestly floored. Still, I will do my best to remove any emotion from my discussion, as I understand there are wildly different opinions on this product.

Mark Rosewater has explicitly stated that Wizards of the Coast wouldn't reprint products like Collector's Edition and International Edition. Which I thought was a shame, because reprinting those would make for a home-run product. It would require no playtesting and no development. The only issue I was aware of was tied to the artwork rights on the cards, as Wizards of the Coast now buys the artwork outright, whereas they used to pay royalties to the artists.

I wish I had been playing when the original Collectors Edition product came out, as I would have loved to have purchased it, though at that time even the $50 MSRP would have been tough to scrounge up as I was just 9 years old!

The Dam Breaks

The release of this product does eliminate a precedent that has been in place since 2000, which was the last year a World Championship deck included cards on the Reserved List.

The cards in these decks were not tournament legal, and had gold borders and different backs. At this time, Wizards of the Coast had a more relaxed view of the Reserved List, as neither printing these gold-bordered cards nor foil versions of Reserved List cards was off the table. Thus, we saw such includes in From the Vault sets, as judge promos, and even a Duel Deck.

Wizards of the Coast hardened their stance on this subject when they revised their reprint policy back in 2010

Since this time, the playerbase has grown exponentially, and the formation of Commander has massively pushed demand for many Reserved List cards. People were soon clamoring for some form of reprint for many of these cards, and it seemed very odd that Wizards doubled down and even restricted themselves further when Mark Rosewater discussed "the spirit of the Reserved List."

With the announcement of 30th Anniversary Edition, it seems that Wizards of the Coast has finally walked back that "spirit of the Reserved List" statement, though admittedly the actual wording of the Reserved List has always allowed for non-tournament-legal reprinting in any degree.

Product vs. Price Point

I have read a lot of reactions from content creators all the way to large store owners, and I think it is smart to separate the product from the price point. I say this because I haven't read any complaints about the product itself existing. All of the issues are tied solely to its high price tag and the choice to sell it in randomized packs.

With Wizards changing their willingness to print non tournament legal versions of Reserved List cards, I would argue that other similar options like the aforementioned Collectors/International Edition and World Championship versions of cards are likely to drop in value and continue to do so.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Mana Vault

After all, the main reason they are valued is that they are acceptable "stand-ins" for tournament legal versions in casual environments like Commander and Cube. So with more of these "stand-ins" entering the market prices, are bound to adjust. These proxy-esque reprints should not hold the kind of value that the original, tournament-legal printings will.

I personally would not hold onto any such "official proxies," regardless of whether they are included in 30th Anniversary Edition or not, as Wizards is now demonstrating they have no qualms about printing more of them. For reference, here are the most valuable of the World Championship cards that are based on cards on the Reserved List:

There was an error retrieving a chart for Gaea's Cradle

There was an error retrieving a chart for Survival of the FIttest

There was an error retrieving a chart for Yawgmoth's Will

There was an error retrieving a chart for Replenish

There was an error retrieving a chart for Academy Rector

There was an error retrieving a chart for Metalworker

There was an error retrieving a chart for Volrath's Stronghold

There was an error retrieving a chart for Grim Monolith

It is important to note that although none of these cards are included in 30th Anniversary Edition, I would expect Wizards to continue this product line, given that is essentially costs them nothing and can generate a lot of profit.

The Market as Price Police

I don't know how many remember the announcement of the original Modern Masters, but there was a fair amount of concern regarding the price of reprinted modern staples tanking like cards did when Chronicles was printed. In that instance, Wizards began with a conservative approach, and under-printed the set.

While I expected Wizards knew they would get a lot of backlash regarding their premium price point, I do wonder if that price point was a way to allow the market itself to limit production size, and by doing so eliminate the risk of tanking original versions of the cards themselves. Indeed, I am noticing on my end an increase in the number of Facebook posts by people looking to sell higher-end Reserved List cards that are included in this product, especially dual lands.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Volcanic Island

I do think we will see some drop in many of the tournament legal printings of the dual lands. It's important to remember that the Legacy format isn't receiving much support here in the US, so a lot of the current demand for these cards is from Commander players. Dual lands from 30th Anniversary Edition will almost assuredly make their way into countless Commander decks and reduce demand for Revised copies.

However, I expect most of the demand for Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited is from collectors, and thus I don't expect their prices to move much. Admittedly, that hypothesis is based on the 30th Anniversary Edition duals being significantly cheaper than their Revised counterparts. Naturally, should the market price them close to the cost of Revised duals, I can't imagine who would pick them over tournament-legal versions.

I do imagine that when Wizards makes another similar product with sets that don't include the Power 9 and dual lands, the price would likely be substantially lower, as few cards fall into the price range of those 19 cards. It would also come off as extremely tone-deaf after the pushback they received from this product.

Proxies? No Problem!

Another interesting trend I'm noticing is a greater willingness of the playerbase as a whole to allow proxies of cards in non-tournament games. I can honestly say that for years, my Commander play group was okay with someone using a proxy in a deck, so long as they owned the actual card. Our logic was that you could put a real copy in your deck if you wanted to, but it was easier to use a proxy in many instances than it was to swap multiple cards out of multiple decks. We also reasoned that risking play wear or damage to a very expensive card wasn't always worth it.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Mox Jet

Our group text blew up with the announcement of 30th Anniversary Edition, and the consensus shifted to everyone selling out of all their high dollar stuff and just playing with proxies. Thus, we did a full 180 on our 8+ year policy in a day; now, proxies will be allowed even if players do not own a tournament-legal copy of the card in question. Granted, there are other factors at play, but it was eye-opening nonetheless.

On a similar note, I expect those who make cool proxies to get a lot of new business in the coming months as many players will decide to sell anything they can't justify owning and play with proxies instead.

Draw Three Conclusions

I honestly feel it is too early to tell how well this product will do. It is telling to me that several of the larger store owners I know on Facebook have openly stated how they would buy as much of this product as they could, yet I wonder what they expect to be able to resell it at, and how much they would really be willing to sink into this product line given the high buy-in costs.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Ancestral Recall

On the flip side of this, most content creators and players I'm aware of are boycotting the product, though I don't know whether it's on principle or for financial reasons (read: they cannot afford it anyway). I didn't see any speculators on our Discord interested in buying any of the product as an investment, either.

Lastly, because of the large number of bulk rares possible in each pack, I really wonder how much will actually get cracked versus how much people are planning on sitting on to sell as "lottery tickets" in the upcoming years. As for me personally, I have no interest in gambling at this high-dollar table.

Adam Plays Magic: Explorer Mono-Green Elves

Posted on October 18, 2022October 18, 2022 by Adam Cohen

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Welcome back to another week of Adam Plays Magic. This time around, we're going wide with everyone's favorite pointy-eared tribe, Elves. Don't be fooled by their frail appearance. These guys have enough lords to fill an entire kingdom, and each adds their own special kind of buff.

What Does it Do?

Elves is a fairly straightforward archetype. Early mana dorks like Elvish Mystic accelerate out a low and aggressive curve. Lords like Elvish Clancaller create a reasonable stat line for the deck's creatures. Card advantage sources like Realmwalker and Collected Company keep the bodies coming.

While Elves in Pioneer has access to meaningful additions in other colors (predominantly black) like Shaman of the Pack, those cards are not available on Arena for Explorer as of now. Without that incentive, the mana base for this build is mono-green, with some utility lands in the form of Castle Garenbrig, Hashep Oasis, Lair of the Hydra, and Boseiju, Who Endures.

What I Like

This is perhaps an obvious statement, but one of the best reasons to play Elves is access to mana dorks. Elvish Mystic and Llanowar Elves in particular are the closest thing most formats have to Moxen (such as Mox Emerald). One-mana, unconditional acceleration on turn one has the potential to snowball rapidly, deploying threat after threat and reloading while the opponent is still constrained on mana.

In a format like Explorer where most of the "unfair" cards are either banned or simply not legal, getting a full suite of the "broken" stuff is a huge incentive.

Thanks to the latest addition from Dominaria United, Leaf-Crowned Visionary, Elves now has some of the best tribal redundancy in the format. Multiple two-mana lords, multiple sources of card draw, and multiple Gaea's Cradle variants in the form of Circle of Dreams Druid and Marwyn, the Nurturer creating egregious sums of mana all culminate into a lean and powerful competitor.

Elvish Warmaster is also one of the most powerful tribal payoffs that exist, period. Any game piece that creates other impactful game objects is exceptionally difficult to deal with for the opponent. When they spend a removal spell to get rid of the Warmaster, it's highly likely it has made at least one token, if not several, and all for free. If left alone, its activated ability creates a mini Overrun that utilizes the tokens it generates to close out the game immediately. There's so much packed into this creature that I'm shocked it's only two mana, especially when comparable cards like Saheeli, Sublime Artificer and Sai, Master Thopterist cost three mana.

What I Dislike

Elves is really good at doing its thing but struggles against the opponent doing theirs. There's no removal, discard, counterspells, or other forms of disruption. The archetype banks heavily on accomplishing its game plan before the opponent can accomplish theirs. Not every draw lines up properly for that to happen though.

Well-timed opposing interaction can set Elves back several turns. Sometimes the opponent kills a dork and there isn't enough mana to cast the deck's payoffs. Other times the opponent removes a payoff and the player is stuck with too many dorks.

Even with all of the card advantage sources in the deck, the engine can still stall. Realmwalker is only as good as the top card of the deck, and given twenty lands and four Collected Company, there's a roughly 50% chance to whiff. Given that Elves plays to the board, a well-timed wrath like Supreme Verdict or Settle the Wreckage can be disastrous.

The Deck

Explorer MonoG Elves

Creatures

4 Elvish Mystic

4 Jaspera Sentinel

4 Llanowar Elves

1 Dwynen's Elite

4 Elvish Warmaster

4 Elvish Clancaller

4 Leaf-Crowned VIsionary

1 Marwyn, the Nurturer

2 Realmwalker

4 Circle of Dreams Druid

4 Steel Leaf Champion

Spells

4 Collected Company

Lands

13 Forest

2 Boseiju, Who Endures

2 Castle Garenbrig

1 Hashep Oasis

2 Lair of the Hydra

Sideboard

2 Shapers' Sanctuary

1 Tamiyo's Safekeeping

2 heroic Intervention

2 Kraul Harpooner

2 Unlicensed Hearse

2 Outland Liberator

2 Garruk's Harbinger

1 Realmwalker

1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets

End Step

And that's a wrap on another week of Adam Plays Magic. Without spoiling the video, I think that the deck is a worthwhile contender and I was able to demonstrate some powerful lines, but even the most redundant and low-curve decks are subject to clunky draws and mana trouble.

Steel Leaf Champion, while the best body on rate, was a fairly anemic inclusion. That slot may likely end up as Elvish Visionary to increase consistency in finding critical payoffs. Hopefully Explorer Anthology 2 and The Brothers' War later this year will bring more support to the archetype.

If you want to keep up with me, you can follow me on Twitch or on Twitter. Be sure to leave a comment below and let me know what decks and topics you want to see! It might just be next week's video. See you all next time.

Post-Banning Check-in: Yorion Edition

Posted on October 18, 2022October 18, 2022 by David Ernenwein

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As is becoming something of a tradition, it's time to look at the immediate consequences of the latest banning. I don't have much data to go off, but neither does anyone else. Which is bad news for all the 4-Color players trying to figure out how to rebuild their deck now bereft of their crutch. I assumed that it would be relatively easy since there were 60-card Omnath decks alongside the more typical 80-card ones. Turns out I was wrong, and it is proving very hard for many to trim down. In retrospect, I should have seen this coming.

The Problem

When the announcement came down, I was pleasantly surprised. I've never liked the companions and wish they'd just be gone. If Wizards decrees that we must slowly ban them rather than just giving up on the mechanic, so be it. However, I was mild on the actual impact on Modern. Very few decks were impacted, and I thought they'd be perfectly viable after a strenuous diet. A welcome, but fairly minor ban.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Yorion, Sky Nomad

However, this past week has challenged that analysis. All day Monday (and throughout the week) I was reading and hearing takes agreeing with my position. However, there was an undercurrent in comment sections and elsewhere of 4-Color Omnath players asking for advice on rebuilding their decks. Early on I brushed it off, but as the week progressed the evidence started coming in that the 60-card versions weren't as good as the 80-card ones.

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

I didn't really think about the rumblings vs writings divide until FNM. Round 3 I am against a player who'd been rocking 80-card 4-Color Blink for months. I was expecting him to have a trimmed down Omnath, Locus of Creation deck. Instead, he revealed Jegantha, the Wellspring. It was Grixis Shadow.

Making the Cut

After the match, I asked him why he wasn't on Omnath after months of dedication. His answer was, bluntly, the deck was bad. He'd been working on it and had played a 60-card version earlier in the week. It didn't go well, and he hadn't been able to fix the problems. He flatly said that he intended to wait for other players to figure out how to build the deck before he tried again.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Jegantha, the Wellspring

I was pretty floored by that revelation. It's completely opposite of how I thought it would work and indicates that I understood Omnath less than I thought. This meant that after FNM was over, I went back and checked the comments I'd mostly glazed over. It was the same complaint with similar conclusions. Players are struggling to actually cut down their Omnath decks to such an extent that they're setting down the deck.

Obvious in Retrospect

I feel like I should have seen this coming. I obviously didn't, but now that the problem has been pointed out it's obvious. I've even discussed the problem before. Last year, there was a brief moment when 80-Card Crashing Footfalls was getting attention. I covered the phenomenon, concluding that the math predicted it would inevitably fail. Which is what happened. However, in that article I noted that there were two good reasons to play more than 60 cards:

Mana Ratios: It's easier to make a desired mana ratio work with more cards
More is More: Larger decks mean more cards, which can mean more relevant cards OR drawing the wrong cards less often

Even before Yorion, Sky Nomad was printed, players had been playing big decks for those reasons, and sometimes it worked out. Yorion was an excuse and reward for doing something players always wanted to do.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Leyline Binding

I thought that said it all and didn't think about it until Leyline Binding was printed. That card had a lot of promise if it could be made cheap, and players wanted to know if it'd work out. Frank Karsten did the math to put everyone's mind at ease. However, the key was playing more fetch lands, and more specifically, the right combination of more fetch lands was the key. It was far easier to fit in the needed lands with an 80-card deck than 60.

Putting it Together

The connection that I could have made but did not was that an 80-card Yorion pile is not only more of a pile than 60-card piles, but it is also far easier to build. In fairness, I never had any reason to make that connection. I didn't anticipate a Yorion ban and felt Omnath decks were sufficiently self-explanatory I never needed to cover them. Plus, I'd said what I knew I wanted to say last November.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Ketria Triome

However, I mentioned that Death and Taxes, particularly in Legacy, plays Yorion partially to help the grind game, but mostly to fit in everything. The same is true of Modern Omnath decks, which I did sort of mention, but not explicitly. Definitely not in a way that would lead me to think that it was a major factor in the deck's success nor integral to its design.

To be clear: Yorion was actually an integral part of 4-Color Omnath, both Control, and Blink. While its explicit utility was as a late-game mirror-breaker, Yorion's main utility was making the deck easier to build by rewarding 80-card decks. Being 80-cards in turn enabled the Omnath decks to include everything they needed, particularly in their mana bases.

Understanding the Problem

There isn't going to be an easy fix for this problem. Maintaining the deck's identity without Yorion will be extremely difficult and may prove impossible. There will still be a 4-Color Omnath deck in Modern. However, the deck everyone has been accustomed to is gone. A new deck has to evolve, and that is going to take time.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Raugrin Triome

The challenge for the Omnath players is how to shrink the deck without sacrificing metagame positioning or power. This is going to be difficult because it means keeping in all the critical cards while rebalancing the manabase. This is a numbers game not in Omnath's favor. Previously, Omnath decks had the advantage over anything fair, only consistently losing to Burn and combo. I doubt that can be maintained.

Size Advantage

The core of the non-combo Omnath decks were four four-of cards: Omnath itself, Wrenn and Six, Teferi, Time Raveler, and Solitude. Any number of supporting cards could be added on to support the core, including but not limited to: Prismatic Ending, Abundant Growth, Unholy Heat, Counterspell, Expressive Iteration, Ice-Fang Coatl, Eladamri's Call, and any other good card.

When the deck was 80-cards, it could easily fit in all 11 cards as four-of's with 36 slots left over for lands and bullets. Doing the same thing in the 60-card version would leave only 16 slots, all of which would be lands and far too few lands at that. Thus, there are very real sacrifices involved. The difficulty of making it happen means that it will be some time before it comes to fruition.

Struggling for Solutions

This is all extremely relevant for the rebuild because, as noted above, all the versions of 4-Color Omnath midrange were very strong against other fair decks across the board. Only decks that didn't care about board position gave them trouble. Consequently, given the actual shape of the metagame, 4-Color should have been more popular than it actually was. The cost of the deck seemed to be the main factor keeping players off it.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Endurance

There are plenty of ways to transition from an 80-card pile to a 60-card one. Reverting to Tribal Elementals or 2019 Niv-Mizzet Reborn-style decks would be relatively easy. Transitioning and maintaining that advantage against everything fair is very hard. There just isn't enough space to have something against everything anymore.

The Mana Problem

At its most basic, the mana ratios don't work out in 60-cards as well as 80-cards. Read the above-linked Karsten article if you haven't already for why in general. As for this specific problem, consider that the average land count for a 4-Color Omnath deck, both Control and Blink, was 30. That makes a ratio of 30/80 or 37.5% land. That ratio isn't possible for 60-card decks. To reach the same 37.5% means a ratio of 22.5/60. It's impossible to have half a card in a deck, so decks aiming for that ratio must either run heavy with 23 lands or light at 22. Of course, they could opt to go even lower because 21/60=35% is the same as the 80-card low-land 28/80 ratio. So maybe that would work out.

Of course, actually deciding the ratio is the easy part. Fitting the lands into the deck is hard. An ideal curve for 4-Color is:

Abundant Growth
Wrenn and Six
Teferi
Omnath

The reason this is the ideal is the first two plays ensure that all the colors are fixed by turn 3. The problem is that Growth and Wrenn aren't guarantees and the deck often has to interact early to survive. Thus, it also had to be able to cast:

Prismatic Ending/Unholy Heat
Counterspell/Eladamri's Call/Ice-Fang Coatl
Teferi/Endurance
Omnath

This curve is much harder to swing and requires specific lands fetched in the right order. Making those drops requires having fetch lands for the first two turns at minimum. Having enough fetch lands was very easy in 80-cards because 12-16 fetch lands (the common range) are 53% of the total or less. Those same numbers would mean that a 60-card manabase would be a minimum of 52% fetch lands to 70% fetch lands. Either case puts extreme strain on the actual mana-producing lands and leaves no room for utility lands or basics. Thus, a complete redesign is required.

The Spell Problem

The core is fairly set, and deviating would completely change 4-Color's role in the metagame. Assuming that Omnath players want to keep the deck in the same niche, that's 16 spells set in stone. In a 21-land deck, that leaves 23 more spells. The deck needs interaction because it is slow but it also needs ways to find Omnath since that's the actual win condition.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Ice-Fang Coatl

In addition to the tutor Eladamri's Call, 80-card Omnath decks all ran the aforementioned Coatl and Growth as cantrips, along with Expressive Iteration as both cantrip and card advantage. If all were played as four-of's, that would only leave seven slots for interaction. Thus, cuts to the support cards are necessary.

The problem is that Coatl and Growth were arguably core cards in Yorion decks. The former was a cantrip that doubled as removal, and the latter was a cantrip plus additional fixing. Cantrips help fix mana, so Growth is doubling the effect. In a deck with extreme color requirements, that means Growth is essential and Omnath feels any loss of Coatl. The new deck would inherently run worse with fewer cantrips.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Abundant Growth

Thus, the cuts in the spell package will need to come from the removal, bullets, and flex slots. This would inherently reduce the win percentage of many matchups. By how much would depend, but there's little chance of Omnath decks maintaining their dominance of midrange matchups across the board. Some matchups will need to be sacrificed.

Reading the Crystal Ball

I can't know how exactly these problems will be solved. However, I am confident that they can and eventually will be solved. Players have a lot of money wrapped up in this deck and won't just give it up. However, acknowledging reality and figuring out what to sacrifice is going to take time. I don't expect to see 4-Color Omnath of any variety in the top tiers for October. The combo decks that play Omnath (specifically Glimpse of Tomorrow) will still be around, but I doubt midrange Omnath will be much of a thing.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Glimpse of Tomorrow

Down the line, however, there could be a strong resurgence. Tailoring the deck toward the metagame could pay huge dividends. Additionally, losing Yorion will bring the cost down. That's 20 fewer cards, many of which were quite pricy. That will reduce the barrier to entry and likely mean more players willing and able to make the jump. Obviously, we have to wait and see, but in theory, banning Yorion might make Omnath a Tier 1 strategy again.

Change is Difficult

The masses of 4-Color Omnath players face difficult decisions. Their deck no longer has the space for everything and they'll have to make cuts. It might be that they have to make drastic changes. It's impossible to say what those changes might be at this stage. However, these are decisions that once solved, should pay out and see the deck return to Modern relevance. For better or worse.

Going Wide, Staying Narrow, and When To Draft Lands

Posted on October 17, 2022October 17, 2022 by Robert Genuario

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When it comes to Dominaria United (DMU), the number one question is, "when should I take lands?" The number one answer is, "it's context-dependent." This week I'd like to take the opportunity to explain that context.

Beginning the Journey

From the first pick, to whatever we're passed at the end of pack three, we are steering our pool toward the best possible deck we can build. Each pick along that journey asks us to narrow in on a single archetype or to "stay open", taking wider surveillance of our options and delaying the decision before locking in our direction.

After our first few picks, we should either a.) have a good idea of where we're going, or, b.) have outs to be a good deck in one of a few strategies. If we are neither of those things, something has gone wrong. These two possibilities do not represent binary options, but rather two points along a spectrum that helps us evaluate each subsequent pick.

Throughout the draft, we move closer to our deck. By the end, whether we like it or not, we have our deck. Staying open, lets us try to find the "best lane for our seat" evaluating the upside of future cards over the ones we've already seen. We take a more narrow approach as we commit to the deck we're seeing emerge from our picks.

Considering Archetypes

DMU's three pillars, Blue Spells decks, Domain decks, and Creature-Based White decks represent the three likeliest shells we'll end up in. If we're in a Blue Spells deck, we want to stay in Blue Spells. So when we're given a choice between "surveying our options" or solidifying our path, we should lean towards staying the path. To quote Paul Newman and Doug Butabi, "Why go out for a burger, when you got a steak at home?" If I have a Tolarian Terror and an Essence Scatter I'm taking an Impulse over a Wooded Ridgeline.

However, because I have no preference to be a Creature-Based White deck, I'm more inclined to survey my options. If my first picks are Knight of Dawn's Light and Destroy Evil, I'd take the Contaminated Aquifer over Argivian Cavalier. If we deem a deck to be less desirable, we should more aggressively consider other options. Just because we speculate on a dual, doesn't mean we've abandoned our first plan. It does mean, however, that we're considering other options.

When we're on a premium path, we should be more likely to take the cards that keep us there. In my opinion, Blue Spells is the premium path if it is open for our seat, but another player or another meta may disagree. Regardless of what you view as that premium path, we should be more willing to commit to that path.

What Lands Do

Lands represent staying open. They make possibilities more possible. The more dual lands we have access to, the more we can do. We can more reliably activate kicker, or splash more ambitiously.

Even double on-color lands help open up splashing. Every Molten Tributary in my UR deck will provide a source for both blue and red. This means that even with one fewer on-color basic, we have the same amount of access to those two colors. With that extra slot, we might consider playing 16 lands or playing an off-color basic to facilitate a splash. We could even be more conservative and just enjoy our even-safer-than-average mana base. All these options come from selecting a land.

Most often, the lands give us access to kicker. While we want to have a reliable amount of sources for our spells, kicker sometimes feels like a free roll. We can play a Ghitu Amplifier because our Red White Aggro deck needs two-drops, but a couple of copies of Idyllic Beachfront creates more exciting possibilities. Cards like Phyrexian Espionage, Benalish Sleeper, Timely Interference, and many others are solid without kicker, but the ability to upgrade them in the late game is a big deal.

What Lands Do in a Format with Domain

If we first pick a Drag to the Bottom or Herd Migration, we should do our best not to pass dual lands. Those are two of the best cards for the Domain deck, and that deck wants dual lands most of all. When this archetype selects dual lands it is both solidifying its position, by picking up an important piece and staying open, by providing avenues into a central color for the Domain deck, expanding the possibilities of its off-color inclusions, and potentially creating a road map to pivot into another color pair or synergy.

If we have a strong incentive to be a Domain deck, we should only take premium uncommons and critically important commons over duals, until we've reached a reliable arrangement of these lands (seven plus is the dream, but six is reasonable. Five and fewer is dicey, but again, this depends on how important those colors are to our deck's plan.)

Additionally, cards like Shadow Prophecy, Meria's Outrider, and Artillery Blast all have significant upgrades when our deck can account for more than two basic land types. By taking a dual land, we improve the power of these cards in whatever deck we play them in.

Refining the Context

Before we select a land, we should consider the following:

Am I on a clear path?
Do I like this path?
Is there evidence that this path is open?
What does the land give me?
What am I passing up?

All of these questions should play a role in whether or not we're taking a land over the next best option in our pack. So far in this article, we've addressed questions one through four. Question number five is a little more open to interpretation. Archetype and card rankings are always contentious. So to refine our practices, we'll take a look at this theory in action.

Theory in Action - Domain Pain

The blue arrows represent the picks I made. The red arrows represent the picks I strongly considered.

The draft started with two reasonably strong cards. Both cards want to play a slower game, and they could lead us toward a Blue White deck leaning toward either color as a pillar, or towards a bigger Domain deck.

Pick three the decision was between the Sunbathing Rootwalla and the land. By taking the land, I'm leaning into the Domain deck, but by passing the Rootwalla, we're losing equity in the most aggressive versions of this deck. The fourth pick faced a similar decision. The land here represents something that would be used on either of the paths we're currently facing. However, we're giving up another payoff for Domain in Nael, Avizoa Aeronaut, and a strong partner for the Rootwalla we just passed in Meria's Outrider. It is going to be hard for us to backdoor into an aggressive Domain deck after this selection. That is real equity that we're giving up

However, the Domain deck needs to have dual lands to function. We could have taken the two-drop and either threat out of pack four, but without the dual lands to support them, we risk them underperforming. Our path was shaky, so we stayed open. By taking lands, we keep our eyes on what is to come in the rest of the draft. If we take the creatures, it's more committal. It forces us to prioritize lands later, as these cards are less effective without a density of duals.

Theory in Action - Picking Pillars

In this situation, I first picked a Drag to the Bottom. I had too much incentive to abandon this plan, so when other options presented themselves, I took dual lands to enable Drag and potentially splash other cards. At this junction, we needed to be a functional Control deck if we were going to be a functional Domain deck. By prioritizing the cheap removal, we left our options open to take those lands later. Of note, the Geothermal Bog would have been the best dual in our pool so far. However, we needed cheap interaction to enable both Silver Scrutiny and Tolarian Terror. While the sweeper is still our best card, we have more important needs.

The final product was a powerful Sultai Control deck, that had five duals (three of which were Haunted Mire). We could not pass up this removal spell for the deck, even though the land would have been nice.

Theory in Action - I Know What I'm Doing

Darigaaz, Shivan Champion is a card that we really want to include in our deck. Seeing a non-basic that helps us cast it is a huge boon for us. While the cards in this pack don't challenge it, we should still take the Geothermal Bog over removal spells or other powerful creatures here. We can't afford to pass up the opportunity to cast our potent five-drop. There is no common I would have taken over the splash land, and very few uncommons.

This deck is less reliant on cheap removal than the deck above. Here we would have passed the Tribute to Urborg given that same choice. The land does so much for us. The removal, while good, does significantly less.

Theory in Action - Preferences and Bias

This pick is almost certainly wrong. Tolarian Terror, Phyrexian Rager, the dual land and potentially multiple white cards were better options. However, at this point in the format, I needed more experience with Red White Aggro. Preferences matter. The path I was going down was one I wanted to be on, so I abandoned the land, and a number of other options, for the Keldon Strike Team. Despite getting seven wins, this pick probably should have been spent elsewhere. The White Creature decks are good when they're open, but at this point in the draft, everything looked open.

Moreover, preferences are likely to change over the course of a format. They differ between players and evolve over time. At that moment, I was on the path I wanted to be and did not want to pass up this signpost staple to test other options.

Theory in Action - Priorities

In this selection, we take the common Take up the Shield over the on-color dual land Sunlit Marsh. Again, the combat trick is simply too important for the Creature-Based White decks, and that's the path we're headed on. None of the other cards are tempting enough to draw us into another path. The land just is unlikely to do as much as the combat trick on the path we're on.

It's Contextual

Every draft pick will always be contextual. Not just because of the amount of data that impacts a given pick, but because we have our own preferences for a given format. In a format as open as DMU, those preferences play a heavy role. In a format where a given archetype has a significant advantage, like White decks in Streets of New Cappena or UB Zombies in Midnight Hunt, those preferences are less important. Every draft is different though, and formats change when exposed to new information, and players generally know what works well for them.

Lands will help give you more options and enhanced reliability. That's not always what you need. There is no quick answer, but if we have a general understanding of where we are, what kind of information we're seeing in each new pack, and what the lands provide for us, we should be able to refine our picks and consistently end up in a strong position.

Four Reasons I’m Downsizing

Posted on October 17, 2022October 17, 2022 by Sigmund Ausfresser

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After a few consecutive years of consistent gains in the stock market, it was easy to become complacent. It didn’t matter which popular tech stock you were looking at, it seemed, they all moved up in tandem. The NASDAQ composite soared from around 7200 at the beginning of 2018 to a peak of over 16,000 late last fall. That’s more than 100% in gains!

Then reality set in, and the market started to cool off. This is not uncommon—the stock market tends to overshoot on the upside as well as the downside. From November 2021 to today, the NASDAQ has shed nearly 6,000 points, and many once-loved tech stocks came down drastically, some as much as eighty to ninety percent.

While it has been extremely painful to watch my portfolio give back all its spectacular gains from the last few years, it’s a stern reminder that the good market giveth and the good market taketh away.

Is Magic any Different?

When it comes to the stock market, it’s impossible for me to try and time tops and bottoms precisely. In fact, I’d argue it’s impossible for almost anyone. People who succeed in doing so can thank their intuition as well as Lady Luck. For this reason, I manage my stock portfolio very deliberately, taking profits on the way up in order to lock in some gains before the inevitable pullback.

Unfortunately, this time around I didn’t do such a great job at that. I took some profits, but not nearly enough. I let my complacency (a harsher term could be “greed”) get the best of me.

Shifting gears to Magic, I hypothesize that a similar trend is unfolding as we speak. Prices, particularly on the most collectible cards from the game’s early years, soared throughout 2020 and 2021. 2022 has been a different story. Many prices on once-hot cards have significantly retraced. Even dual lands have not been immune to this trend, though their pullback has been less offensive than others:

There was an error retrieving a chart for Underground Sea

If you want to see a more painful price chart, check out the history on Golgothian Sylex. The artifact from Antiquities had a peak buylist price near $50 once upon a time. The best offer today? Roughly half that.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Golgothian Sylex

Fortunately, not every Old School card price has softened this drastically. Some Commander staples, such as Gaea's Cradle, have managed to hold onto their premium despite the weakening economy. It’s certainly not all doom and gloom.

I do not expect the secondary market to collapse. On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if we’re in for a lengthy phase of consolidation and weaker pricing. It’s coincident with the broader economy, which is likely in a recession of sorts. Just like with the stock market, Magic card prices tend to overshoot to the upside and downside. I’d argue the trends mirror each other significantly, and that Magic finance is undergoing a prototypical contraction.

Then Why Sell?

Despite the fact that prices are already off their peak, I’m still making a point of selling more aggressively this time around. Why is that? I already missed the peak, so am I not selling into market weakness rather than strength? What gives?

These are fair questions, and I won’t have a perfectly rational answer to address them all completely. I will do my best to outline the four main reasons I’ve decided it’s a good time for me, personally, to scale back my Old School collection.

Reason #1: Locking in Gains

I watched my paper gains in the stock market evaporate throughout 2022. Not all my positions moved from in the green to in the red, but enough moved enough in the red to cancel out those I own still on the positive side. It’s painful, but I know the stock market will come back eventually and I have time. I can be patient.

In Magic, I’ve seen some of my gains erode but not nearly all of them. What’s more, I don’t have as much time because I want to raise money from Magic to help fund my kids’ college educations. Yes, my eldest is only ten years old, so one could argue that I have seven years yet before I’d have to sell out. There’s a peace of mind factor here that motivates me to take the healthy gains I have today, rather than letting my greed take over and hold out for more.

Reason #2: Magic is Still a Game

When I purchased my first piece of Power back in 2015 (A Mox Jet for $700), I wasn’t ignorant of the fact that these cards could double up as investments of sorts.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Mox Jet

I figured it was safe to buy that piece of Power or dual land because they would likely remain stable or appreciate over time while I got to enjoy playing with the cards. It was a true win-win, one that makes Magic a special kind of hobby. I wish my other hobbies, such as running and bowling, led to financial gains over time.

At this point, however, playing with these cards almost feels reckless. Am I really going to shuffle up a Mox Jet for a sanctioned Magic event? Maybe once every couple of years at most, but it feels more and more irresponsible to do so. At these numbers, iconic cards have become investment pieces first and game pieces second, whether I like it or not. I could never have anticipated these cards growing as much as they have in price, but at this point, I’m simply not comfortable holding them. I can enjoy the game just as much playing budget decks or proxies instead.

Reason #3: Waning Interest

My love for Magic has risen and fallen over the past 25 years. When I was brand new to the game the world was my oyster—the thrill of opening a booster pack meant new avenues to explore and deck ideas to pursue. College meant a short hiatus from the game, but adulthood brought me right back in. It has been a wild ride. I completely missed out on Mirrodin block with no regrets.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Skullclamp

Now, at 38 years old, as a parent with two children, my priorities have shifted dramatically. As a result, the way I enjoy Magic has also evolved. Instead of heading to a couple of Grands Prix a year and battling in weekly Legacy tournaments locally, now I play goofy games of Commander with my ten-year-old and enjoy a draft now and then on Arena. Magic will always have a place in my life, but I don’t need expensive cards to maximize enjoyment anymore. Since my love for collecting older cards has waned, it may make sense to move on and let someone else enjoy them for a while.

Reason #4: The Big Unknown

I’m not a fearmonger here. No matter what Wizards of the Coast has done over the past 30 years, Magic has largely emerged unscathed and successful. Chronicles and Fallen Empires may have been low points for the game, but since then it’s been cruising to new records year after year.

All that being said, I would be lying if I said I felt great about the Beta reprint set Magic 30. Will the supply be anything significant enough to damage Old School prices? Outside of Collectors’ Edition, I think not. This one-time special set will be a fun flash in the pan and could even rekindle excitement for the originals.

My concern is not that the set exists. It’s the underlying motivation of Hasbro to create such a set. Hasbro plans on expanding profits by 50% in three years, and Magic: the Gathering will be a heavy driver of this growth. For 30 years the makers of Magic have not interacted with nor acknowledged the secondary market. Over that time, the value of the secondary market has ballooned to hundreds of millions of dollars. In my opinion, Magic 30 is an attempt by Hasbro to harness some of the value of the secondary market.

If it goes well, they’ll do it again. As I said earlier, this may have minimal bearing on the original printings. Mana Drain has been reprinted several times, yet the original is still nearly $300.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Mana Drain

This alone is not a reason to sell. In conjunction with the other factors above, it does make me feel a little more at ease in my decision to sell. I’ll still maintain a collection, but a much smaller, more modest (and, quite frankly, more fun-oriented) collection. I think I can still enjoy the game without the money component being so central to it.

Wrapping It Up

There you have it. I’ve done my best to outline the reasons why, for me, it’s a good time to sell some cards. To be fair, I’m always buying and selling something—I enjoy the sense of liquidity that Magic offers, and who doesn’t love receiving #MTGMail now and again?

That said, I feel I would be deliberately misleading readers if I said this selling cycle was like all the others for me. It’s not. I’m making a more concerted effort to cut down on my collection. Is it the ideal time to do this? Certainly not—for one, I have no idea where the absolute peak will be (if it’ll ever be achieved) and for another, I could have done better if I had sold six months ago.

That’s all water under the bridge now. Just like with the stock market, every day I end while owning a stock and a Magic card is effectively a day I bought said asset. The opportunity cost alone makes this true. I sit here ruing the fact I did not sell more stocks—especially the growth stocks—during last year’s peak.

I refuse to let that be me in Magic. At this stage in my life, I’m much more inclined to regret selling too late than regret selling too soon. Perhaps that, in the end, is the ultimate reason it’s time for me to scale back.

Generational Magic: Drafting The Silliness of Unfinity

Posted on October 14, 2022October 13, 2022 by Anthony Willier

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Whether drafting is your thing or not, participating in an Unfinity draft can be a fun and silly way to let your hair down. You not only play Magic, but you have an opportunity to develop many potential talents! You could work on your oration skills using Carnival Barker, maybe practice your dexterity with Plate Spinning, or just win games with Comet, Stellar Pup.

Drafting Unfinity can also help you get to know a little more about the people around you. Maybe you find out one of your friends is a card thrower extraordinaire after they play Knife and Death. It can be such enlightening fun. Of course, I happily took my own advice and joined a draft at one of our local stores, Mavericks.

Our Octuple of Outlandish Organisms

I was even able to provide some assistance to the store before we started. They were initially thinking that you passed the land along with the rest of the pack, like most other sets. I happily shared Mark Rosewater's confirmation that you keep the land as well, and we were ready to go!

^{Initial instructions for an Un-set is a must!}

Fortunately, all at this table are well-versed in Magic, so with a little bit of specific Unfinity instruction, we were all ready to sling some cardboard.

These Aren't Your Grandmother's Magic Cards

I ripped open my first pack to find a nice borderless Sacred Foundry starting back at me! I really do appreciate the artwork on these, and would love to get more of them, but being fortunate (and old) I do have a set of the originals, so my desire to have them isn't as strong. Awesome art! The draft pods before and after us both had one shock land pull as well. Sounds like the one-per-box estimate was pretty spot on. What's your pack 1, pick 1?

My first pick was How is this a Par Three?!. I do enjoy a mill deck and thought if the game stalled out, I would have an alternate way to win. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to really get it going. Throughout the whole draft, I only drew it twice and played it once.

As you can see, I didn't have any real focus with just this pack, other than leaning toward black and blue. I did think those two Glitterflitters and Haberthrasher might be the start of something, though. On to the next pack! What's your pick?

Ok, now we have a game plan: Hats and stickers! With Roxi, Publicist to the Stars and the multiple Focused Funambulists, we can really start to utilize the life loss from the Haberthrasher.

I believe we have a deck now. I finished up with a third Focused Funambulist, a Scared Stiff, and a very useful Proficient Pyrodancer. Gray Merchant of Alphabet was the icing on the cake.

I was able to round out the removal suite with a couple of Boing!s, Wolf in _____ Clothing, Attempted Murder, and Super-Duper Lost.

Round 1: Keith, GW Attractions

You may recall Keith from my Double Masters 2022 draft article. He built a GW deck and was ready to inundate me with his plethora of attractions!

I apologize for the glare, but between the incremental life loss from the Haberthrasher and attacking with a pumped up Roxi, Publicist to the Stars I was able to take Keith down on this one. He did play _____ Bird Gets the Worm a couple times to make it more difficult, but the +2/+0 and menace ability from Proficient Pyrodancer made it less of a problem.

Second verse, same as the first. As you can see from the second picture, both games were very similar. Same creatures and same result. Keith did get four Attractions out at once, though! If he'd had better dice rolls, I probably would've been in trouble, but the dice gods did not smile down upon him this time.

The Special of Un

Here's a prime example of the goofiness and silly fun that Un-sets can provide. Jay and Famine were playing on my left, and a few turns into their game, Jay shouted out loud. I turned and saw this expression of joy:

^{An honest to goodness living Planeswalker!}

The reason is evident in the green sleeves on Jay's head and in the picture below. Even though the Centaur of Attention with five dice on it is cool, that's not it.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Form of the Approach of the Second Sun

I'm unsure if he was able to win the game with the latest Form card since I had to switch back and focus on my game with Keith, but it was fun to see it in action.

Round 3: Famine on GW Pump

Famine was a new player to the store and hadn't been out in a while, but they couldn't pass up the chance to draft Unfinity. Famine put together a GW deck with sticker effects and pump spells like Embiggen.

I forgot to grab a picture of our first game, but suffice to say, Famine ran me over with big tramply creatures and a couple of clutch removal spells like Gobsmacked.

Famine was stunted on mana too long in this game. I was able to beatdown in a similar fashion to my games against Keith. Toward the end of the game, Famine was able to get a couple of small creatures on the board to give him a little breathing room. I played Wolf in _____ Clothing choosing the Shenanigans sticker, cleared them away, and swung for lethal.

The rubber match was quite a bit more interesting and we both ended up at nine life. Famine Gobsmacked my Roxi, Publicist to the Stars to stem my flying beats, but between an Attempted Murder, and two timely Boing!s, I was able to take the match.

The "Extra" Special of Un

Let's take a moment to go back to Jay and Famine's match. Sometime after Jay resolved Form of the Approach of the Second Sun, he started giggling again. Here is what I saw on the board:

In case you're unable to see it, here is what Jay did:

Yes, he played Photo Op to get Enter the Dungeon and start a sub-game...under the table (shown below).

Still, that's not the most hilarious part of this exchange. A few turns later, Famine was able to respond in kind (forgive the under-the-table glare):

There was an error retrieving a chart for Tug of War

Final level achieved. End boss defeated. We now had a sub-game within a sub-game! Jay didn't win the sub-games, though, and that more than likely led to his ultimate downfall.

Round 3: Patrick on RW Clowns

Patrick defeated Zak and Ben after Ben defeated Zach. Patrick is normally a Constructed player, but has been having fun playing Limited formats a little more often lately. Either way, we were both ready to battle, goofy-style. We went ahead and split the pot, but still had to play for the box topper! Of course, playing Unfinity isn't a have to, but a want to.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Comet, Stellar Pup

Unfortunately, I lost the first game so quickly I forgot to take a picture. Patrick's aggressive RW clown deck was able to land a turn two Sanguine Sipper, and with a little pressure, put me on the back pedal. I was at 10 life with him at 26. I played out Roxi, Publicist to the Stars and Dee Kay, Finder of the Lost to hold him off a little. That hope was crushed when he slammed Comet, Stellar Pup. He proceeded to roll a six, then follow up with a four and a five to remove both of my creatures. Mind you, I probably wasn't winning that game anyway, but Patrick's planeswalking puppy proved a very good boy.

The second game was more back-and-forth. He started going wide with Pietra, Crafter of Clowns and Assembled Ensemble, and I had a small group of flyers. Patrick was at 12, and I at 13. I swung with a pumped Roxi, Publicist to the Stars and a Glitterflitter to take him to three.

I thought I was going to have a couple of blockers to be able to absorb enough damage and finish him next turn. Patrick not only played Goblin Cruciverbalist, but took my untapped Glitterflitter with Amped Up to steal the game and match.

^{A happy Patrick displaying his foil Watery Grave and Comet}

Unfinity = Fun?

Even with the final round loss, it was an awesome time. You still want to win, but it's a different feeling. I found that winning or losing isn't as big a focus. Doing something wacky is, and we definitely had that in this draft pod. The experience was very enjoyable, and I would be happy to join in at least a couple more.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Greatest Show in the Multiverse

A couple of notes for anyone looking to join an Unfinity draft that hasn't had the opportunity yet:

Attractions are very similar to Contraptions from Unstable. The fact that that they don't automatically trigger and that you're at the whim of the die roll adds to the variance.
Stickers are fun, but after you use them a few times, they start to lose their stick-to-itiveness. You'll want to keep an eye on them either way though since they are pretty small.
Tickets can be fun, but they seem a little hard to accumulate on a consistent basis. Maybe there isn't enough support for them, or possibly I just didn't see them enough.

I hope that you've enjoyed this trip through my Unfinity draft. Please also share your fun and wacky draft experiences with the set in the comments or on Twitter.

Magic 30 And Commander: Should You Even Care?

Posted on October 13, 2022October 12, 2022 by Joe Mauri

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There was an error retrieving a chart for Black Lotus

They've reprinted the holy grail of Magic! What does it mean? Will card values plummet? Is Magic about to die? Will dogs and cats live together, causing mass hysteria?

...Or is this just the latest nothing burger? As far as Commander goes, definitely the latter. First, I'm going to give you the TL;DR of my opinion, and then we'll going to dive a bit deeper into why I think this is not a big deal, for Commander at least.

Collector's Edition, International Edition, Championship Decks

These things have all existed for years without causing significant harm to Magic as a game, Commander as a format, or to the collectibility of old, valuable cards. We've returned to Ravnica and Zendikar and Kamigawa, but we haven't had a Collector's Edition TWO yet? It's about time.

Another idea is that making new Championship decks could be a way to get people interested in competitive Magic and Standard again. Rather than blaming the popularity of Commander for Magic's issues, maybe pundits should consider that Hasbro has done little to re-invest and grow other Magic formats for many, many years.

What Does This Have to Do With Commander?

Nothing. No, seriously, not one thing. Completely illegitimate proxy cards already exist. Some groups allow them, others do not. As mentioned before there have been many Magic products that are authentic but non-tournament legal. These new authentic-but-not-tournament legal cards will do the exact same thing as Unfinity: cause additional confusion and divide the player base. These are premium-priced collector cards intended for a super small subset of whale buyers, not the average Magic player.

A Deeper Conversation

First and foremost, what is the essence of Magic: The Gathering? Well, it's the primogeniture of all CCGs, or collectible card games. Ah, there it is. Collectible. Card. Game. You can't collect anything without cards, and your cards don't just sit in binders and graded slabs looking awesome; you can also play a game with them. The new Magic 30 reprints are for enthusiast collectors, not regular players. We know this why? Because the cards have a different back and they are not tournament legal, so you literally cannot play with them. Yes, these are equally as playable as homemade proxy cards when it comes to authorized Wizards events. Oh, and they cost $250. A pack.

Let's Talk About Apes

There was an error retrieving a chart for Kird Ape

Kid Ape may seem a rather strange card to talk about, but I think it will drive the point home. For many years in the early life of Magic, Kird Ape was a top-of-the-line aggro threat. After a turn one Taiga, you had an impressive 2/3 with which to start the game. A few Giant Growths, Blood Lusts and Lightning Bolts later and the game was over.

The card saw success in various Zoo decks later on, after it had been reprinted into oblivion. It's been reprinted several times, and at one point was even banned. As a result of that, you can even pick up a version with its rarity technically at mythic in the From the Vault: Exiled product line.

Okay, But Isn't This Article About Reprinting Black Lotus?

Kind of! It's about the nature of CCGs and reprints. Arabian Nights Kird Ape will always be the most collectible printing, because it was the first print and from an absolutely ancient and extremely scarce set. No amount of reprinting, foiling, or rarity shifts will change this fact for this card. Do you remember this other nothing burger?

They Recently Reprinted Black Lotus Already

Right now, these Duel Masters cards are selling for around $15 each. Is the above card really Black Lotus? No, we all know that is not what this is. Is it rare and ultra-collectible in the same way? No. Should you care that other people buy it? No. Does it matter that at Timmy's kitchen table, they use this card as a proxy when they play their custom Vintage format? No.

But, Really, I Thought This Was About Commander?

It is, I promise! I'm merely drawing parallels. The 30th Anniversary cards that are the most playable in Commander are obviously Timetwister, any dual land, Wheel of Fortune, and Mana Vault. Here's the thing, though. These 30th Anniversary cards are just as legal to play as homemade proxies or other cards that are banned from the format entirely, like... Black Lotus.

So is your play group really going to allow certain newly reprinted cards, but ban others? Doesn't sound likely to me, and I think this would cause more issues than it solves. Furthermore, outside of Twister, it's totally possible to acquire the other cards. It's a collectible game; collect!

Why Mention Mana Vault? It's Been Reprinted!

There was an error retrieving a chart for Mana Vault

There's a really good reason to bring up Mana Vault. Sure, it's been reprinted several times, but the price has still stayed fairly high for any version. However, the Fourth Edition print seems to generally be the least expensive at around $40 or so. Owning one for every deck would get quite expensive. The thing is, there are tons of current in-print cards that command $40 or more. Look at Dockside Extortionist, which just got reprinted and is red, not an artifact that could go into every deck. Sure, it came down in price, but is it still $40 or more? Yes. This is a collectible game, and desirable cards with any hint of scarcity tend to be expensive. Welcome to CCGs!

Poor Budget Decisions: The Real Culprit

Let's say your play group will allow these 30th Anniversary cards into your pod. Why aren't you manufacturing your own proxies for virtually free in that case? No, your group won't allow inauthentic proxies, but authentic proxies get a pass. Uh, alright, I guess? You're going to gamble $250 plus tax, buy a pack, and hope you get a dual land, Wheel, or Twister? At the time of writing this article, you could get a (heavily played but completely authentic and tournament legal) Savannah, Plateau, Scrubland, Taiga, or Wheel of Fortune from one of numerous online retailers for that same $250. Shopping around on eBay/tcgplayer could get you a better condition card, price, or maybe a different dual as well.

I don't understand. You have $250 to gamble but you don't have $250 for a guaranteed card of your choosing? And yes, you could get a Timetwister or "better" dual land, potentially. But it's a proxy! An authentic proxy, but a proxy nonetheless.

What about Collector's Edition/International Edition Timetwister? Those are also "authentic proxies" and they are worth thousands of dollars! Sure, but you see, I was already prepared for this line of attack. Much like Arabian Nights Kird Ape, those sets are nearly 30 years old, far rarer, and therefore superior. It's obvious that most Magic players would take an OG Arabian Nights Ape over a new-border one if offered.

Plus, There's Old School Format

While the format is not massively popular like Commander or Standard, a growing surge of Old School players has driven up card prices over the past few years. Sure, we're in a price correction right now. Geopolitical strife, inflation, Hasbro reprinting everything, and so on. However, if Old School continues to slowly grow, it will put pressure back on the prices of original, older printings. Part of the reason that both CE and IE have appreciated in price so much is directly related to Old School format. The modern 30th cards simply don't work in this case and never will.

Just Buy Dual Lands Already

Seriously. Commander players. They aren't going to get cheaper in your lifetime. 30th Anniversary was your shot at getting these reprinted, and the economics don't make sense, as shown above. If you play with a group that allows proxy cards, you still shouldn't buy 30th Anniversary. Stop complaining about the price of 30-year-old collectible cards that are powerful and buy those instead of new proxy product. You won't regret it. Oh, what's that? You needed a Timetwister? Well then, good luck!

Magical Creatures: Rigger, Surrakar, and Eldrazi

Posted on October 12, 2022October 11, 2022 by Francesco Spagnol

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Magical Creatures! Throughout this series, we've been dealing with creatures that were created specifically for the Magic: The Gathering franchise. These have ranged from older types, such as Atog, to more recent ones, like Zubera. This is the 16th installment of this series, and we're almost done: only a handful of creatures are left; less than 10! So how come today's article only touches on expansions as late as 2010?

As we'll see later, over the course of Magic's history, the frequency with which new creatures were introduced has dropped. In the first few years, every single expansion introduced something new, but things changed after about a decade. Mirrodin was the last block to introduce several new subtypes, and that was almost 20 years ago now.

Perhaps it has something to do with the decline of real-world flavor text? Or a creative dry spell? Be sure to drop your take in the comments! Meanwhile, let's focus on today's creatures and see see what they tell us. Rigger comes from the Time Spiral block, while Surrakar and Eldrazi were introduced in the Zendikar block.

Future Sight

I have already begun tackling the Time Spiral block in the past week's piece, dealing with Camarid and Triskelavite. Today, however, I'll only focus on Future Sight, the third expansion from that block, as it's where Riggers first got their name. Released in May 2007, Future Sight was home of many excellent cards, including Tarmogoyf, Bridge From Below, and other game-changing spells.

At the same time, it worked as a final piece for the Time Spiral block, this time looking at the future. This is why it's packed with the weirdest creatures (and spells in general) ever. And the one I'm going to analyze now is no exception!

Rigger

Rigger, as the word itself suggests, is a class more than a race. And this, along with the fact that for many years only two Riggers existed, doesn't help to identify this funny creature type. Let's start from the beginning.

The first Rigger was Moriok Rigger, from Fifth Dawn. However, back in 2004, it was just a Human Rogue, and this is why I didn't include it in the piece dealing with the Mirrodin block. Can you guess when exactly things changed? That's right, Grand Creature Type Update yet again!

That sweeping errata occurred at the time of Lorwyn's realease, or October 2007. Just a few months after the release of Future Sight, which actually makes Steamflogger Boss the first Rigger to be printed with this type on the card. That's why I've chosen to include Rigger in today's piece.

Alright, so now we have two Riggers, or "creatures that specialize in the lifting and moving of extremely large or heavy objects." What about the rest? We had to wait a few years before seeing more of them. Ten years, to be more precise, leading us to the release of Unstable in 2017. The third of the so-called "Un-sets," Unstable was designed for drafting, and added 14 more creatures with the subtype Rigger to Magic.

The arrival of Unstable drove home that Rigger is a class, as they all came with different races: Gnome, Ninja, Goblin, and even Octopus and Cyborg. Interestingly, all these Riggers had something to do with the Un-set mechanic of assembling Contraptions, as did Steamflogger Boss. That leaves Moriok Rigger the only Rigger creature that has nothing to do with Contraptions... but hey, at least it can still be pumped by the Boss!

The Zendikar Block

Between 2009 and 2010, an atypical block came out. Consisting of two larger sets (Zendikar and Rise of Eldrazi) and one smaller set (Worldwake) in between, it was based on lands. Zendikar block introduced two creature types unique to Magic, and as we'll see soon, they had very different fortunes. The first only showed up on four creatures, while the second boasts a whopping 140 cards!

Surrakar

The first creature type, Surrakar, was introduced with Zendikar. Only 4 creatures exist with this subtype, and all come from the same block. Two are black, and two are blue. Their illustrations depict reptilian humanoids walking on two feet, but with arms similar to their legs. They vaguely resemble another race, Amphin. And anyway, don't forget the actual name for that race is Salamander: 13 such creatures exist, and only three of them feature the word Amphin in their name.

Well, there being just four Surrakars doesn't leave us much opportunity to discuss their features. Let's just say they have medium-sized bodies (between 2/1 and 3/3) and are classless, or simply Surrakar. All four of them have a triggered ability, but each triggers in a different way and offers a different effect. They were all decent in Zendikar draft, but nothing special otherwise.

Eldrazi: First Generation

I'm sure you all know what an Eldrazi is, and that's not just because there are 140 of them. It's also because quite a lot of them are pretty powerful, and in the past ten years or so have wrought havoc on the Modern format.

Eldrazi were introduced in the third expansion of this block, the fittingly (and foretellingly) titled Rise of the Eldrazi. At the time, just 15 creatures with the subtype Eldrazi were printed (plus some tribal sorceries, instants and enchantments).

BreachPost

Some of them were a big deal from the very beginning. Pro Tour Philadelphia, for instance, put Jesse Hampton in the Top 8 with a deck called BreachPost. The point was to use the 12 "Locus lands" (Cloudpost, Glimmerpost and the land-copying Vesuva), as well as some Walls able to generate tons of mana and cast huge creatures: Primeval Titan, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, and of course Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. With Through the Breach, everything gets easier, but the deck's claim to fame was its ability to hardcast these fatties.

Eldrazi: Second Generation

Over 90 more Eldrazi cards arrived a few years later, in 2015 and 2016, with the large expansion Battle for Zendikar and the small expansion Oath of the Gatewatch. And this block is where Eldrazi really became a thing. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was already a great card, but was limited to combo strategies and ramp-centric decks like Breach Post.

Eldrazi Aggro

Be honest: do the above card images, taken together, still strike fear into your heart after all this time?

As of 2016, new flavors of Eldrazi strategies started seeing play, and winning tournaments too. Piloted by Jiachen Tao, a list of Eldrazi Aggro triumphed at Pro Tour Philadelphia in February 2016. No more 'Posts: the crucial lands were Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin, allowing players to leverage efficiently-costed Eldrazi in aggressive decks. Crucially, Eldrazi were no longer just giant, overcosted creatures, but instead cost between 3 and 6 mana each, which was insanely cheap with help from Eye and Temple.

Thus, Eldrazi became a tribe suitable for an aggro deck, rather than just combo fodder, and led to the banning of Eye of Ugin from Modern. Even today, Eldrazi Stompy remains a popular contender in Legacy.

A Decline in New, Unique Creatures

Today, we had to jump from Future Sight (2007) to Rise of Eldrazi (2010) in order to gather three creature types to talk about. This is simply the culmination of a trend we have been observing for a while: the decline in the creation of creature types unique to Magic. Sets such as Fallen Empires and Tempest, or even blocks as Urza and Mirrodin, were full of these creations, but over the years they became increasingly rare.

We just saw a three-year gap, but the next one will be even more impressive: we'll have to skip ahead almost six years! Did you know that? And why do you think it happened in the first place? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

Yorion and Meathook Get MASSACRED

Posted on October 11, 2022October 11, 2022 by Adam Cohen

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Effective October 10, 2022, Yorion, Sky Nomad is banned in Modern and The Meathook Massacre is banned in Standard. While I believe Wizards of the Coast made accurate selections on which decks they chose to weaken with this update, I don't necessarily agree with the cards they chose. Let's talk about it.

Yorion, Sky Nomad

Four-Color Omnath

Over the past year, the Four-Color Omnath, Locus of Creation archetype has been among the top decks, if not the top deck in Modern. On its face, Four-Color is a midrange "good stuff" pile of incremental card advantage and efficient removal. It wants to grind out two-for-ones until the opponent runs out of steam, eventually taking over the game. With so many strong enters-the-battlefield effects, it's a natural home to Yorion, Sky Nomad, and benefits from a "free" eighth card at the start of the game.

However, one of the main issues with Four-Color is that it's slow. The deck is mana-intensive and the mana base is exceptionally greedy. It relies on Wrenn and Six and fetch lands to keep guaranteed lands and proper colors. This core is supplemented by Abundant Growth and occasionally Utopia Sprawl for additional mana consistency. In no uncertain terms, Four-Color doesn't reliably function without Wrenn and Six.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Wrenn and Six

A build of Four-Color with 60 cards has a roughly 40% chance of drawing Wrenn and Six in their opening hand, while the 80-card build has that rate drop to 31%. From a statistical perspective, non-Yorion builds are more consistent at drawing their key cards. Similarly, they're more likely to draw their silver bullets and sideboard cards to combat other decks in the metagame.

In practice, Yorion acts as a mirror-breaker. Four-Color with Yorion has a massive advantage against those without it, incentivizing players to lower their win rates against the field to one-up their same deck. Now that there's no push to "go bigger" than the mirror, Four-Color is poised to be a stronger overall contender going forward. In other words, if this ban was meant to weaken the archetype, I fear it will have an inverse effect. Wizards may end up taking future action, and my best guess would be Wrenn and Six being the future target.

Until then, here's an example of what a 60-card build may look like:

Four-Color Omnath (60) by Penseur_MTG

Companion

1 Kaheera, the Orphanguard

Creatures

4 Omnath, Locus of Creation

4 Solitude

Planeswalkers

4 Wrenn and Six

4 Teferi, TIme Raveler

2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Enchantments

3 Leyline Binding

Spells

4 Prismatic Ending

2 Unholy Heat

4 Counterspell

4 Expressive Iteration

1 Supreme Verdict

Lands

2 Boseiju, Who Endures

1 Breeding Pool

4 Flooded Strand

1 Hallowed Fountain

4 Misty Rainforest

1 Otawara, Soaring City

1 Raugrin Triome

1 Snow-Covered Forest

1 Snow-Covered Island

1 Snow-Covered Plains

1 Steam Vents

1 Temple Garden

4 Windswept Heath

1 Zagoth Triome

Sideboard

1 Boseiju, Who Endures

2 Chalice of the Void

2 Flusterstorm

3 Veil of Summer

2 Hallowed Moonlight

1 Dress Down

2 Endurance

1 Supreme Verdict

The Meathook Massacre

The banning of The Meathook Massacre feels like a shot in the dark. Thanks to Standard rotation, the card pool for the format is the smallest it will be for the next year, and black midrange currently has the lion's share of power in the format.

While cards like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Wedding Invitation, and The Wandering Emperor are among the highest individually powerful game pieces, they're able to simply be slotted into primarily black shells. Meanwhile, black has above-rate cards at each stage of the curve like Evolved Sleeper, Tenacious Underdog, Liliana of the Veil, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, and even Invoke Despair. This leaves decks primarily focused in other colors with shallower card pools struggling to keep pace.

The problem here is that black is just generally better. No individual card by itself is egregiously overpowered. We can't simply pluck out the offending card like Emrakul, the Promised End, or Felidar Guardian in their respective Standards. The Meathook Massacre, while a strong card, and one that appears in most black decks, is ultimately non-essential to their dominance. If the goal was to balance the color distribution, I'm uncertain how much this will actually do.

Interestingly, I'd classify both Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Wedding Invitation as individually overpowered. When the potential of a Standard ban was floated, they were my immediate suspects. Meathook acts as a powerful answer to both of those cards, and without it as a foil, they may run even more rampant while still in base-black decks. These cards likely should have also been banned alongside Meathook, and I would not be surprised to see them gone in a future ban list update.

Pioneer?

In the ban announcement, Wizards indicated that Pioneer appeared to be in a good place, with the top 20 decks capping at a 53% win rate. This came as quite a surprise as both Mono-Green Ramp and RB Midrange have seemingly put up consistent and dominating results in Magic Online Challenges as well as competitive paper play.

My immediate expectation, and that of fellow tournament grinders, was that one or both of these decks would be targeted to promote diversity in the format. As is the case in Standard, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is the best card in the RB Midrange archetype, which is also the most-played deck in Pioneer. It's hard for fair decks to keep pace with the number of game objects and card selection the singular three-mana spell provides.

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

Meanwhile, Mono-Green Ramp is arguably too flexible for what it does. In addition to the traditional ramp play pattern of Llanowar Elves, into Old-Growth Troll, into Cavalier of Thorns, going taller and faster than everything else—Karn the Great Creator presents the potential for a combo finish.

The deck features a convoluted sequence with Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner and Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset (played off of either Storm the Festival or Oath of Nissa) untapping Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and The Chain Veil for infinite planeswalker activations. The finishing blow comes from Pestilent Cauldron // Restorative Burst looping with Karn over and over until finally milling the opponent infinitely.

Mono-Green Ramp is fast and consistent and can pivot seamlessly between beatdown and combo. Plus thanks to its wishboard of interactive artifacts like Tormod's Crypt and Damping Sphere, the player can lock opponents out in game one from utilizing several strategies. A Karn ban would force the ramp strategy to stay in its lane where it's more easily answerable by other decks in the metagame.

End Step

This round of bannings was unexpectedly tame, and I'm not quite sure how much it will accomplish. My expectation is that the problematic cards that remain will continue to pose an issue for the next few months, at which point we will experience another ban announcement.

I understand the desire for incrementalism and checking to see how each small tweak will impact their respective formats, but there is a real cost in consumer confidence with repeated bans over and over.

In either case, I will be diving into post-ban Modern and Standard, so be sure to stay tuned! You can keep up with me on Twitch and on Twitter, and catch my content here on Quiet Speculation every Tuesday. See you all next time!

Big Decks Begone: Yorion’s Banned

Posted on October 11, 2022October 11, 2022 by David Ernenwein

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Bans used to be eminently predictable. Wizards had four announcements per year and they were scheduled well in advance. Everybody knew when B&R Day was coming. However, that rigid schedule prevented Wizards from responding to crises such as Modern's "Eldrazi Winter" in 2016. So, Wizards now ban whenever they feel the need. True bolts from the blue are rare, especially because, for technical reasons, they put up a placeholder webpage the Friday before the Monday the announcement goes live. There are players running browsing scripts looking for this page every week so that we're not taken completely by surprise. Thus, I knew a ban was incoming, but not what would be banned or in what format.

Yorion is Banned in Modern

I don't cover Standard, so I'm not going to discuss the The Meathook Massacre banning in Standard. The banning of Yorion, Sky Nomad in Modern though, is very much in my wheelhouse. Yorion getting the hammer is unexpected, though not unwelcome. As I said when Lurrus of the Dream-Den was banned, the companion mechanic is a mistake, and it should go away. The cards that have companion aren't problematic by themselves, but the mechanic is incredibly overpowered. I wish Wizards would just re-errata or ban the companion mechanic outright rather than gradually banning each card individually, but that seems to be the direction they've taken.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Yorion, Sky Nomad

Wizards' Reasoning

Every banning is a new insight into Wizards' thought process, and their explanation article is particularly interesting this time. I'll be discussing the opening sentence on its own in a bit, but the second is relevant now:

However, as tabletop Modern play continues to rebound since the height of the pandemic, we've decided to enact a change that we've been considering for some time by banning Yorion, the Sky Nomad.

"Considering for some time" is the significant clause, here. When I made up my Banning Watchlist last year, I didn't include Yorion. While, again, I think the whole companion mechanic had to go, the only specific companion that caused trouble was Lurrus. This indicates that Wizards does see the entire mechanic as problematic and may have considered banning Lurrus and Yorion together. However, there's a bigger problem with Yorion:

we're also factoring in the physical dexterity requirements of playing with a large deck for tabletop. We're wary of the metagame reaching a point where players are playing the deck because of its perceived strength and win rate despite not enjoying how cumbersome it can be to operate.
While these physical dexterity issues exist to a lesser degree in other formats (like Pioneer), Modern specifically entails more shuffling and other physical card manipulation because of the deep card pool of card-selection spells, fetch lands, and so on.

This is probably the really big killer. Both the Tournament Rules and the Infraction Procedure Guide have statements on what constitutes sufficient randomization. These requirements have soft-banned Battle of Wits for years. 80-card Yorion decks are much harder to shuffle within the requirements and therefore fall afoul of this rule. It makes sense to remove the obstacle rather than have players penalized, especially with large paper events returning. Finally:

Finally, we've also heard from many players that the repeated triggers caused by Yorion and many of the cards surrounding it can lead to repetitive gameplay patterns and long games with lots of downtime between the other player's actions.

Anyone who's sat through a tournament, waiting for the Four-Color Omnath mirrors to finish feels this deeply. I'm not sorry to see that problem alleviated.

The Bottom Line

What all this ultimately means is that Yorion was not directly banned due to concerns over power level. Instead, this is a tournament logistics ban first, with poor play experience (repetitive games) as a secondary consideration. Wizards have been aware that these may be problems specific to paper play, apparently for some time, and have decided to deal with the problem before it gets worse. It's a problem we've seen in the past with this card:

As for this week's ban, I agree with these reasons from personal experience. Waiting around for Omnath mirrors to slowly grind themselves down is the worst. I also won't miss the problems with shuffling my opponent's deck. As for the power considerations, Wizard did say something interesting on that front that I'll be addressing on its own in a bit.

That Data Line

What has really gotten to me from this announcement is Wizards' cited data. It's always going to be true that Wizards has (or at least has access to) much better data than I do. They have all the data from all the matchups played on Magic: Online (MTGO) while I get ~350 decks to examine every month. Wizards know with certainty what decks are winning, and at what rate, while I can only guesstimate. However, I'm not used to my data being so wildly different from Wizards':

Modern has been in a healthy place since the last banned and restricted update, with good diversity among archetypes and even the most popular competitive decks occupying a relatively small slice of the metagame (about 5–6% each, on Magic Online).

Ummm....what? The most popular decks are only around 5% of the metagame? I've been singling out UR Murktide and frequently Hammer Time as statistical outliers since March! Yet, they're only 5%ish overall?! I'm used to having my data diverge from Wizards, that's normal. It's never happened to this extent before, though. Even with the complete data from Premier events, there shouldn't be such a wild difference between what entered the event and what won i.e. what Wizards knows vs what I see.

The only way this divergence makes sense to me is that League numbers are driving this data. There are far more League games than Premier, but we only see a tiny and curated slice of 5-0 decks. It seems that the top-performing decks don't show up in the Leagues which brings the numbers down. Which is interesting to contemplate.

Wizards' Crystal Ball

There's a further, interesting statistic Wizards mentioned:

Yorion most commonly appears as a companion in Four-Color Omnath decks, which show a strong win rate and, according to our matchup data, are likely to continue to rise in popularity.

That statement runs totally contrary to what's been happening to Omnath, Locus of Creation decks in my data. The collective Omnath decks have been on a general downward trend since June. While it hasn't been as bad for paper Omnath as MTGO, it did look like the metagame was adapting to Omnath and it wasn't much of an issue.

Wizards must have seen that despite low play numbers, Omnath decks have a strong win rate. For Wizards that means 55% or better, which again, is not something I've observed consistently. Omnath decks frequently do well in average power rankings, but not exceptionally well. Clearly, Wizards' data had them winning a lot in the Leagues.

It is also possible, given that rising in popularity clause, that Wizards is being cautious. They know what new cards are coming down the pipe and may know of something likely to break the Omnath decks. Depowering it now might save some pain down the line.

Impact on Modern

If depowering Omnath in the metagame was the intention, I'm not certain it will succeed. Many decks were able to steal wins off Four-Color when the additional variance of 20 extra cards caused Omnath to flounder. Its inconsistency was a boon to decks like Burn which kept its numbers down. Forcing Omnath to go leaner and more consistent might make it better against Burn.

Indeed, the chatter I'm hearing from people that actually play Four-Color indicates that banning Yorion isn't going to have much impact. In fact, it may make the deck better overall. Yorion was necessary for the mirror where card advantage was paramount. Yorion triggering everything again was the best way to come back from behind or to slam the door shut. It was mediocre everywhere else, and the additional cards hurt in fast matchups. Now Omnath decks can focus on beating other decks more, and it might lead to a Four-Color surge. I'll be watching.

Banning Winners

Modern wins as a whole since paper tournaments won't take as long anymore. As for specific winners, there aren't many.

Mill is a big winner here. Big decks are frustrating for Mill players and may have contributed to it falling off over the past few months. It's the equivalent of decks starting off with extra life vs Burn. Now that the incentives and rewards for being big are gone, Mill should do better. If not, it may be time to admit that Mill just isn't that good in Modern.

Besides Mill, no deck specifically benefits from Yorion being gone because no deck is fully unviable anymore. There have been 60-card Omnath decks alongside the Yorion versions this whole time, so the deck will simply adapt. Death and Taxes is in the same boat. I don't know of other decks consistently running Yorion. The format hasn't been fundamentally altered. Omnath decks may even benefit from this ban.

Banning Losers

It's equally hard to identify specific losers. Those playing Four-Color Omnath mirrors are certainly worse off since their Turn-the-Game-Around Button is banned, but other than that? It will heavily depend on how Four-Color adapts. A more consistent Omnath would spell trouble for Burn since an active Omnath is hard to beat, but it also means less support for that Omnath. It's hard to predict how it all plays out.

To A Newish Modern

The biggest takeaway for me is that October's metagame update will be smaller than normal because I have to throw out any data where Yorion's legal. This will make the stats a bit weird but will still give a decent view of how things are evolving. Now we all wait and see.