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Wilds of Eldraine felt like it just got here, and yet we're already starting another season of previews for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. I usually ignore the initial previews until we get a more in-depth look, but this time there are some cards that jump right out. Let’s start with the most in-your-face preview—a reprint creating a lot of buzz. Cavern Of Souls I’m so old that I remember the last time Cavern of Souls was in Standard. I vaguely remember it being printed as a way to combat the presence of Mana Leak in the format. The card has warped Magic forever in some ways, but it also used to get more hate than it deserved. While Make Disappear has waxed and waned in popularity, Cavern's main function for Standard will be to fix mana, not necessarily to dodge counter-magic. I have no issues with this card in Standard, and it could lead to some potentially cool tribal decks if they’re more heavily supported down the line. Cavern in Pioneer has more impact. There are people on both sides of the fence saying it won’t matter for control decks or it will kill control decks, but I’m in the middle. As a player who played a lot of Creativity in Pioneer, I'd often use Make Disappear on the play to help against decks like Mono W Humans. With a couple of Caverns likely coming to that archetype, these blue midrange decks will struggle to keep up with decks that can present threat after threat if they can’t rely on a few counterspells to keep the battlefield clean. I can see a deck like Lotus Field incorporating a copy somewhere in the 75 along with tough creatures for control match-ups. They use Dromoka currently, but making Lier uncounterable is a scary thing to stare down. In fact, with Cavern in the format, there are a lot of scary creatures that can be more heavily leaned on. It will be interesting to see if Cavern unlocks any archetypes on its own. Cavern is a great reprint, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it shakes things up. I’m glad Raffine doesn’t share a creature type with Sheoldred or it might get a bit scary in Standard if Esper Legends mana becomes even better. Kellan, Daring Traveler This is an interesting one to theorycraft, as we don’t know what map tokens do yet. Journey On creates map tokens, and my best guess would be that it explores, but maybe with different wording because explore was attached to creatures and provided +1+1 counters. Perhaps it’s a surveil? My intuition is the mechanic will let you look at the top of your deck and manipulate it in some way, especially given this creature has the ability to attack and reveal a creature with a cost of three mana or less and put it into your hand. This would make the two halves of the card play better together, so it seems to make sense. Given that, this card isn’t super exciting, but it could play a role in low-curve creature decks. It’s a reasonable-value creature to fill the hole between Skrelv and Raffine on the curve, but unfortunately, Journey On is green, which makes it more difficult to get full value. Without an actual Enter-the-Battlefield effect, Kellan doesn’t seem that exciting, but it will eat removal early allowing you to open the door for more powerful creatures later on the curve. Kellan is a card I’ll need to know more about and play some games with to evaluate, but it feels a lot like Deeproot Wayfinder in that it looks better than it is, so until I see it, I’m not falling for it again. Huatli, Poet of Unity Huatli looks amazing. I don’t consider it a broken card, and while it's not quite the same as Nissa, Vastwood Seer, it’s probably even better. It’s a value creature with a reasonable stat line and more importantly, it threatens to flip into quite the threat at five mana. This is the kind of card that makes Cavern of Souls a bit scary, in that it can provide so much value if unchecked. Huatli demands removal but also provides value upfront to ensure you’re up material in that exchange. Tapping out against a Huatli in play could be devastating. I absolutely love this card, and I’m excited to see it in action. Hopefully, it lets me play with at least one copy of Etali in a competitive setting since I love that card too, and they appear to play well together. Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant Speaking of dinosaurs, even though I’m not looking to tutor this with Huatli, I want to cheat this into play. Ghalta appears to be more of an Eternal card for a format like Cube with cards like Sneak Attack, Animate Dead, Natural Order, or even Flash. Ghalta screams win-more, and it’s not a card I’m overly excited about, but it is powerful, so I’m interested in if it sees play anywhere. I doubt we’ll see this in Standard, Pioneer, or anything competitive. The Skullspore Nexus I can see it now. Someone in play design asks, “What happens when you put Embercleave and The Great Henge on one card?” Well, you end up with The Skullspore Nexus. It's certainly a card with a powerful effect, but as far as competitive formats are concerned, this card looks like it will fall flat. It asks you to have creatures in play, and once you do, it provides some value in the form of a pump effect and even some protection with its ability to create tokens when your creature that helped you get it in play dies. However, this doesn’t provide a lot of traction and will not dig you out of a hole in the same way a card like The Great Henge did. I’m not seeing it with The Skullspore Nexus. Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might shows us that gods are back with their same sticky ability. Ojer isn’t too exciting since it's intended to enhance your burn spells. While that's all well and good, it’s too expensive for formats outside of Standard, and there’s nothing to push it in Standard. Maybe Ojer pushes a core of cards similar to Scalding Viper that are playable enough on their own over the top into a cohesive plan. I could imagine if we have a card like Goblin Bombardment available things could get interesting, but on its face this card has poor stats for a four-drop, especially in a format dominated by Sheoldred. Standard is dominated by permanents these days. This card can eat removal and provide value by turning into a land that can turn back into Ojer, but I don’t think that's how Standard operates these days. This could provide some explosive finishes in a format like Pioneer where we have tools like Mayhem Devil, but again, these effects tend to be a bit win-more in those strategies. I’m currently low on Ojer, but there's a lot of room for this one to improve with a couple of strong printings that amplify its ability into playability. So far, the set looks interesting, and while some of the cards aren’t super strong, cards like Huatli and Cavern of Souls will certainly shake things up a bit in Standard and potentially Pioneer. I’m excited to see how this set develops.

This week we got to watch the World Championships, and what a player to win the World Championship. Since the MPL was put together, Jean-Emmanuel Depraz has been on my shortlist for best technical player and most impressive player. If Jean has any leaks, it could only be in deck selection. He always impresses me with his play, and he stands out while winning games that almost no one else would. We kicked off the event watching Nathan Steuer, our former World Champion and another candidate for best player in the game. Nathan has an uncanny ability to understand what's going on in each game by honing his hand-reading skills and understanding what his opponent's play means for the next few turns. Nathan plays about as close to perfect Magic as you can get. I love Nathan, and he is at minimum a top-three player in the game right now, but I did not like the start of his draft with Up the Beanstalk over good red removal spells in Torch the Tower and Witchstalker Frenzy. I want to leverage tempo in this format, and while it’s nice to have a way to pick up extra cards, you want Up the Beanstalk to fall in your lap when you happen to be in green or, specifically in my eyes, Simic. This is not the format where you want your theme to be “all my cards cost five mana.” I’m curious what the conversations about Limited were like in that house, and I'd love to discuss it with them. If I had to guess, maybe Nathan wanted to downscale red in his pick orders because he thought it would be heavily contested, and green, which is also a very strong color, would potentially be less contested. I'm curious about his thoughts on that topic. On day two we saw Reid Duke roll his pod with a similar strategy. Up the Beanstalk and Ramp was a bit messy, but his deck was consistent with multiple ramp spells and a solid top-end of three Hamlet Glutton. Reid is another player who’s on the very short list of best players in the world. He is crushing the competition this year with another top 8 at Worlds to follow up an impressive Pro Tour victory. Reid didn't play any games with his deck before the Pro Tour he won. I was in the house with him, he wanted to play Lotus badly but chose the team deck and took down the whole event. I could never say enough good things about Reid, but one thing I noticed that separates him from everyone is his ability to focus on each game like it's the finals of a Pro Tour. He never loses focus on winning and is vigilant about making the right plays whether he’s 5-0 or 0-5. Of Reid’s many admirable qualities, this is one I’d like to work on myself. Standard looked a little exciting and diverse for a change. We saw a lot of different archetypes. Aggro represented with decks like Simon Nielsen’s Soldiers and Team CFB's White Aggro. We saw Domain Ramp played by both Reid Duke and Gabriel Nassif, and we also saw typical midrange decks like Anthony Lee’s Golgari Midrange and of course, the boogeyman, Esper Midrange and Esper Legends played by a large percentage of the field, including both finalists and your champion Jean-Emmanuel Depraz. I was curious to see how surprised great players like Ondrej Strasky were to see a metagame breakdown of tons of Esper. After the bannings that took out Fable of the Mirror Breaker, everyone was shouting from the rooftops to play Esper. Esper lost nothing because it didn’t want to play Reckoner Bankbuster due to Raffine, and the deck was so streamlined and solid against every deck in the format that wasn’t a Fable deck. Looking at the Standard results, it seemed like Esper was still doing fairly well, but I saw less of it a few weeks later. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’ll say it again, Esper probably has no bad match-ups in the metagame, and if it does, it’s probably only slightly unfavorable. Esper contains the strongest cards left in the format in Raffine and Sheoldred and can protect them with the best one-drop in the format, Skrelv. Plaza of Heroes is the best land we’ve seen in Standard in quite some time. The deck is a lot like Mardu Vehicles in that its biggest issue is its mana and not drawing cards on curve, but it’s incredibly difficult to beat when it draws well. If I played a tournament this weekend, I would definitely play Esper. Generally, it’s bad to play a deck that just had a great showing at a major tournament the week before because people all come in with plans against the deck, but I think Esper is as close to bulletproof as I’ve seen in Standard in a while. I don’t think at the moment you can play Esper and have it be a bad choice. Worlds felt different this year because of the size of the field, and I’m not used to it being a large size. Ever since my return to the game, it’s been a smaller field tournament, and it’s sentimental to me because I remember it being a dream to play in such an exclusive event. The first season I played, I beat Shahar Shenhar in round 15 of Pro Tour Origins. I knew I had locked up a Worlds slot with that win. I almost immediately had a panic attack and had to run to the restroom to splash water on my face. I didn’t think my next round mattered all that much since I was 11-4 and thought I was basically dead for anything but top 16. However, everyone was seated when I walked into the room, and my name was on the loudspeaker to be on the main feature, as I had a win and had no idea I was in the running. I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about a win as I was about beating Shenhar to lock my slot in a small-field Worlds, even as I finished the tournament, made it all the way to the finals, and won Player of the Year. In that moment, the Worlds slot is what mattered most to me. Speaking of Player of the Year, Simon Nielsen has won the title with an unbelievable season. He’s made the top 8 in three major events in a row, and while it’s been done before, it’s rare and immediately puts you in the conversation with incredible company like Jon Finkel, Luis-Scott Vargas, and Nathan Steuer. He also won the Fless and Blood National Championships in the middle all of it. His attitude about the game is inspiring, as he’s always trying to learn and play. Simon is just a gamer. I can’t help but admire his approach to life. Worlds was fun to watch, and while I didn’t actually have FOMO for playing Worlds itself, it gave me the itch to play some competitive paper Magic. Unfortunately, there aren't any events I’d want to go to for quite some time, so hopefully that itch doesn’t fade. I’m not sure how much I want to pursue playing as many Pro Tours as possible, or even any right now, but I still love this game and want to play when I can, focus on making content, and streaming as much as I can to keep in touch with the game and community I love.

This weekend, the World Championships are upon us, and we'll get to see world-class drafters battling in WOE Limited. I got to play the Arena Open this past weekend and easily made day two on my first try with a naughty BR Rats deck. I did not fare too well on day two in a tough seat where I took black cards early after a first-pick Specter of Mortality in a weak pack. I had to pivot my initial plans of an RB start into Bant, which made for a tough spot, and I ended up with this deck: The draft was tough because I saw four or five copies of Sharae of Numbing Depths in pack one. To boot, the packs were a little weaker than usual, so I knew UW would be contested. I managed to find a lane in Bant wheeling two Sharae. While my deck wasn’t great, I could have won all four of my matches instead of two if things broke a little better for me. We’re talking one more or less spell for me or the opponent or drawing spells in a slightly better sequence. I was mostly happy with my play and needed a bit more luck after a rough start to my draft. Regardless, this format can be tough to both play and navigate the draft. The format is tempo-heavy, and combat is exciting. Tokens that can’t block have never been better thanks to roles. Initially, I said that Torch the Tower was my favorite common and that something that I was likely undervaluing would likely surpass the card. I’ll now go on record with confidence saying that Torch the Tower is indeed the common you want to open. Breaking serve in this format is tough if your opponent draws well. Torch the Tower and, in some cases, Rat Out are the best ways of doing so. Flick a Coin and Rat Out are moving up in people’s pick orders, which generally means they’re going to be in a lot more decks. This means we should be deprioritizing cards with one toughness that cost more than one mana. It’s tough to come back from a big tempo loss early with aggressive decks. Scarecrow Guide is an example of a card I try to avoid playing in most of my decks despite it being a decent-rate creature. Decent isn’t good enough when you can avoid playing into cards people are picking more. I haven’t gone up on either Rat Out or Flick a Coin. I don’t want too many of these cards because you really feel when things line up poorly in this format. The cards can have some huge tempo swings, but Flick a Coin is overrated. I don't take Rat Out aggressively, but I'm happy to play a copy because of its utility as a combat trick. I want to play to the board in this format and make sure I’m spending my mana proactively. I don’t find spots for Flick a Coin all that often in the important turns of the game in my aggressive decks. This deck is an example of how I want my decks to look. It has solid removal and creatures that get on the ground early and hit hard. Notice Armory Mice in the sideboard as an example of a card to deprioritize because of the Flick a Coins and Rat Outs you often come across. The best way to win with aggressive decks, and in Magic in general, is pressuring the opponent and making their turns awkward. You can pull out to a massive lead if the opponent's interaction doesn't line up. By forcing the opponent to play a blocker instead of using removal early, you can use a cheap combat trick or a card like Cut In to push through more damage as they play catch up and eventually close out the game. My current favorite two cards in the set, also both red, are Cut In and Grand Ball Guest. The secret's out on Cut In, but Grand Ball Guest is still wheeling to me. It might be the best common two-drop in the set. To add some context, Ratcatcher Trainee is more of a three-drop to me, but it's a card I'd take over the Guest. You shouldn’t be taking the Guest over the Trainee, but because of cards like Rat Out and Flick, you should be casting Trainee’s Adventure Pest Problem first. Curving Grand Ball Guest into Pest Problem is exactly what you should be looking to do, especially if you can follow it with a Cut In. Red is incredibly deep, and I’m curious to see how many players dip their toes in red at Worlds. Worlds will have more inexperienced drafters than usual because of the OP system, so it should be exciting to watch new talented players dive into Limited on the big stage. Red is great, but on the other hand, blue is bad. This is not a format you want to take turns off and draw cards. You want to play creatures every turn whether that’s to stay proactive or gum up the board when you’re on the back foot. Blue benefits from a lot of cheap removal, and if you can bury them in cards early you can occasionally out-grind the aggro decks, but blue still has a problem blocking Rat Tokens effectively and spot removal may not line up well. Because of the pace of the format, removal that may have been good in older formats is mediocre. You want to kill your opponent and be proactive, so cards like Frantic Firebolt and Feed the Cauldron usually end up in my sideboard unless I’m playing blue and then Firebolt goes way up. The big problem with Feed is, at best, it trades even on mana and you want your cards to trade up on mana in this format as often as possible. Cheap removal is at a premium, and expensive removal, which most of it is, is at a loss. Even Cooped Up is better than the unconditional removal in black like The End or Taken by Nightmares because it's two less mana. It triggers Celebration, so its downside of being a permanent that can be removed is outweighed by enabling Celebration. In general, I try to avoid blue. Many of the players at Worlds will take hard stances on avoiding blue, and we’ll see some last-minute scraped-together blue decks in potentially weird drafts. Overall, this is a great Limited Lovers format. If you like scrappy games with tons of decisions both in the draft and gameplay, then this set has not disappointed me yet. The set isn't deep with archetypes, but it is deep with playables. Combat is huge in this format. While blocking is difficult, it’s important to know how your position lines up, do combat math, and line up blocks. It wasn't a surprise to see a lot more great players get to day two of the Arena Open with far fewer attempts than average because the format, while fast, doesn’t reward you much for opening a bunch of broken rares. I'm excited to see some high-level Limited play at Worlds.

Wilds of Eldraine is finally available, and I must say I’m enjoying the Limited format, at least for now. I’ll preface by saying that all my experience with this set has been in Best of One on Arena ranked, so it’s a bit biased because of the hand smoother and higher variance nature of Best of One. Roles, for lack of a better term, play a huge role in the format. Lots of cards in the format provide the ability to slap a pesky +1+1 aura of some kind onto a creature already on the battlefield, so it’s important to get a creature out early. This means your general Grizzly Bears and one-mana 1/1s are a lot better in the format than they would be if you removed that context. Adventures play a big role in the format by making it rare for players to run out of action. Players have interaction more often because a lot of creatures have some kind of sorcery or instant attached to them. This makes for more interactive games and players spending almost all of their mana every turn. I noticed that in games I’ve lost I either wasn’t spending my mana productively or choosing not to cast a spell. Now this is a Best of One thing too with the hand smoother, so I’m going to keep my eye on how it feels as I play MTGO for the next couple of days off-stream. Cheap removal is, as always, premium. My current vote for the best common in the set is Torch the Tower. It’s an up-tempo removal spell that almost always hits its mark. Bargain cards have diminishing returns. I came into my stream yesterday high on Johann’s Stopgap and left after a brief conversation with Allen Wu recognizing it wasn’t as strong as we both anticipated. A lot of the good higher-end creatures have enters-the-battlefield effects, or they’re also an adventure, so trying to bounce creatures for tempo leaves you down cards. Unless you’re able to close quickly, this effect is worse than it's been in the past. This also means expensive creatures that don’t have some kind of enters-the-battlefield effect or an adventure are lower priorities than they were in other sets. You can get a card like Beluna’s Gatekeeper to serve as both some early interaction and a top-end threat. This makes a card like Archive Dragon less appealing because it’s only a slightly better six-mana body, but it has no outside utility in the early game. Because of all the adventures and constant use of mana, missing land drops is a death sentence. It’s easy for opponents to push tempo when they’re never running out of spells. I’d say play one more land than you think you should on average and be less willing to bottom a land off of a mulligan than you would in other sets. If you have cards like Sleight of hand or various green cards that produce mana, then 17 is probably a perfect spot to be. This also leads me to my next point that having a good start is important because the set's extra spells and value make it important to be on the board early. In general, mulliganing in Limited is punishing, but there’s more room for recovery in this set. Those sketchy one-land keeps or keeps that start with one color are worse here. Don’t be afraid to click the mulligan button. It's rare I run out of spells in this format, so a good start is key. Because of the importance of getting on the board and having that good start, it’s also important to not be too reactive. I’ve had some great-looking UR decks with tons of spells and cheap removal, and I just can’t out-grind my low-curve aggro opponents as often as I’d like. It’s too hard because of all the value tacked onto the adventure creatures and various other ways to get value in the set. It’s too early to tell if this short-term archetype variant will work or not, but I noticed that I end up getting buried when I draw lots of interaction and not enough threats. Example UR Deck There are also a lot of good cheap tricks. Cards like Monstrous Rage and Royal Treatment are incredibly strong tricks, and I even liked Leaping Ambush quite a bit. There's more incentive to play solid low-curve creatures. Keep in mind that you want the hero role to have as low toughness as possible to get the most value for creatures with higher toughness and where +1+1 auras are most effective. Now I’m painting a picture of a blistering fast format where there’s no hope for midrange or control and I don’t think that’s the case. We need to calibrate our pick orders properly to reflect exactly what we get paid off for because of the mechanics of the set. Having a two-drop, or even a one-drop, is important, so pick them up when you can over some higher-impact three- and four-drops. The set is also incredibly deep. I haven’t come close to being short on playables, but that's likely because I haven’t weeded out some of the worse cards yet because they look fine for other formats. In this one, they’re probably less playable than in a traditional draft format. Regarding colors, I’ve liked everything but white. Blue has performed a little worse than I’d like. Normally, blue is one of the better colors because it provides better traction than other colors at common. Cards like Quick Study and other card draw are less effective because adventure cards provide value, so raw card draw isn’t as valuable. Every color can produce card advantage like blue, which makes blue worse than it would be traditionally. I still think it's good, and from where I’m sitting, the format is fairly balanced, but it’s still too early and fast-paced to tell. I don’t dislike small splashes, likely in green where you get mana fixing. Don’t be afraid to put a Crystal Grotto in your deck to play some off-color adventure splashes. A lot of people are reluctant to play Crystal Grotto, but in higher-curve decks without strict double color requirements, it's a solid and good card that can do things like help you cast Puny Snack off of Gingerbread Hunter. I’ll keep blasting away at these drafts until I find a strategy that stands out, but right now my only strategy is to avoid white. I prefer red at the moment, but only because I’m getting Torch the Tower in the middle of pack one. If you like traditional old-school Limited, this set does a lot of the curve-out combat trick stuff, but it does it in a more fun way by providing tons of in-game options rather than the games playing themselves. I can say for now that this isn’t an all-timer in my book, but it’s one of my favorite formats thus far that incentivizes low-curve starts because the games and drafts are both interesting.

Wilds of Eldraine is just around the corner and we finally have the full preview. This week I want to wrap up my set review with some interesting cards. Overall, I think the set is fairly weak, but more cards came out this week that are at least a little interesting. Let’s take a look. Mosswood Dreadknight Mosswood Dreadknight looks like a take on Tenacious Underdog, a two-drop that's seen a lot of Standard play. A two-mana 3/2 has been good enough to see play in both Standard and Pioneer, and Mosswood Dreadknight may be good enough to break into Standard, but it unfortunately won't fit into Pioneer. It's a sick threat against control that can accrue card advantage. Every time it dies you can put it back into the adventure zone in your next turn cycle and get a card for your trouble. For four mana Mosswood Dreadknight will also stay in play rather than go back to your graveyard like Blitzed Tenacious Underdog. Mosswood Dreadknight is probably a good comparison to Tenacious Underdog. It has the upside of being a four-mana 3/2 draw a card when played in the midgame, but it has the downside of being forced to cast from the graveyard to keep it in the early game. It's a sweet card, and I'm glad to see cards like this hit the design space of adventures. I would have loved to play this in GB Adventures in those days of Standard, but for now, unless Jund makes a resurgence, it'll likely be swept under the rug. Question Druid This is a callback to Quirion Dryad, a card that has not aged well. It's a strict upgrade that adds a Reckless Impulse as an adventure in the form of Seek the Beast on top of the squishy 1/1. Ideally, this would be played in a Temur deck, and it has more of a shot in a format like Legacy or Modern than in smaller formats because it wants to be played with cantrips and cheap cards, as does Seek the Beast. While Orcish Bowmasters will make sure it never sees play in either of those formats for now, I could see it being worth a card because it draws two cards for two mana and provides a threat that can eventually get out of hand. Keep in mind, this card also gets a big benefit from other non-green adventure cards that have cheap costs on both sides like Bonecrusher Giant. It's a well-designed card, as both sides want to be playing the same types of cheap, low-curve spells. Up the Beanstalk I'm not sure what to think of Up the Beanstalk yet. I'll need to play some games with it to know for sure, but my hunch is it's a bit too cute. There's been talk of playing it in a deck like Modern 4c with cards like Solitude and Fury. In Legacy, we'd even get to add Force of Will to that list. My issue with Up the Beanstalk is that if it's meant to be fueled by the free cards to mitigate the downside of losing a card to cast them, then it's a short list of those that you want in your deck, and the card is even worse against non-creature decks when you need some of those cards out of your deck. This is the kind of card you'll play with for a few games and quickly know to what extent it's good or bad. I'm looking forward to seeing if various delve and free spells are enough to make Up the Beanstalk a legit contender. Redcap Gutter-Dweller Redcap Gutter-Dweller didn't look too good at first glance, but I could see a world where this card is strong enough to see play, especially in an actual goblin deck. Four mana gets you five powers across three bodies and the ability to generate some cards to keep an engine going. Again, it's more of a Standard power-level card that punishes someone trying to play a lot of removal in the form of generating extra tokens to create damage. However, it's also the kind of card that you want to kill in a creature deck because it's still hard to block and can turn 1/1s into cards. This is on the cusp of playable, but it still might be too weak, especially without Fable around. Rotisserie Elemental A call back to Bomat Courier, menace is unfortunately worse than haste and having to connect with your creature is different than being able to sacrifice it later in the game. Bomat Courier makes having removal awkward because it can go off at any time, whereas Rotisserie Elemental handles removal quite easily. I'm not a fan of this, though it could make it into some more casual low-curve, all one-drop Mono Red decks. It's worse than other red one-drops we have available right now. Scalding Viper Eidolon of the Great Revel meets Brazen Borrower, and they become a much worse version of themselves. Steam clean is a sorcery that makes this card so much worse than it could be. Scaling Viper is also played at sorcery speed, unlike Brazen Borrower. For this card to see play, we'd need to see an aggressive red deck that's splashing blue for sideboard counterspells and where Scalding Viper can be meaningful enough to supplement the deck's gameplay. I don't see that happening, and as long as Brazen Borrower remains in Pioneer, Scalding Viper is too underwhelming with both halves at sorcery speed. Elusive Otter Elusive Otter looks like a miss for me. This is another card like Questing Druid that wants to play along with tons of low-curve creatures and spells. A Temur deck with that pair, cards like Monastery Swiftspear, and filled out with cheap burn, cantrips, and sprinkled with countermagic sounds nice, but it would be too underpowered. Grove's Bounty is interesting in that style of deck, as it helps the games you flood out on creatures because it will trigger your prowess on the creatures in play while also giving permanent counters amongst those creatures. In general, cards like this are too low impact to see a whole lot of play, and Grove's Bounty and Prowess are at odds with each other. However, it's worth noting that with the release of Wilds of Eldraine, we will have Consider and Sleight of Hand legal in Standard, as well as Delver of Secrets and Tolarion Terror. It would be fun to see that style of Magic again. Elusive Otter is an interesting card, but I don't see it having a home in a tier-one deck. Farsight Ritual This is a new twist on Memory Deluge but a bit worse. Farsight Ritual is worse than Scattered Thoughts if you can't pay the bargain cost. If the bargain cost is easy or free for you, it's still too clunky and weak unless you're trying to put together a deterministic combo or something. I'm not a fan of Farsight Ritual, especially when we have Quick Study, an instant speed divination. Quick Study is still not a great card, but a full mana off is worth the hoops you have to jump through for Farsight Ritual to dig deeper than four cards. Heartflame Duelist Heartflame Duelist is almost like Bonecrusher Giant, except the adventure unfortunately doesn't curve into the creature, which makes the card worse. Three damage for three mana is inefficient, and a two-mana 3/1 will have its spots in Constructed where it's serviceable, but mostly it's too low impact. While neither side of Bonecrusher Giant was that strong, the fact that Stomp curved into Bonecrusher and Stomp was more efficient was a big reason why Bonecrusher was so good. Heartflame Duelist is the kind of card you'd want against the deck it would be in, a low-curve burn deck where adding lifelink to your removal would help you prolong and get a handle on the game. Heartflame Slash doesn't answer enough threats in the format efficiently for this card to have a big impact in Standard. Faerie Fencing Faerie Fencing would be a sweet card if we could put together a playable faerie deck. It's effectively a one-mana -3-3 as long as you are able to sequence it with a faerie, something like a Faerie Mastermind. We saw this style of deck with rogues in Standard just a couple of years ago. It would be great to see that kind of archetype get more support, as both rogues and faeries were beloved the last time they were playable in Standard. Faerie Fencing forces you to play with low-curve creatures, so you can get it out early. It will also have a buyout fail case of spending mana if not and be able to kill a card like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. If faeries can exist in Standard, Faerie Fencing will be a big reason why it's successful, as it's a reasonably efficient and flexible removal spell that can also break through indestructible creatures. That will do it for me this week. By the time this is published, I'll likely have gotten my hands on the cards since I hope to stream the Early Access event on Thursday and discuss what I learned about the Limited format. With big Limited events like the 100k in Las Vegas in September, I'll steer my content more towards Limited for now. This set may look a bit weak for Standard in comparison with Throne of Eldraine, but I like how it's shaping up for Limited. It'll probably be a while before we see a set as good as March of the Machines for Limited, but I'm hoping I'm surprised with this one.

We’re back once again with some Wild of Eldraine previews. After looking over the official previews, I once again must say that this set is a massive power level downgrade from the original Eldraine and, in many ways, any current sets. That said, there are a lot of cool designs. Let’s take a look! Specter of Mortality At first glance, this card looks rock solid. Reminiscent of Massacre Girl, this is a five-mana creature with the potential to wipe the board as it enters the battlefield. Specter does ask a couple of things of you. First, you need to put and keep cards in your graveyard. Second, those cards, in some quantity, need to be creatures. This makes the card weak to cards like the printed Soul-Guide Lantern, and there’s a tension between playing a lot of creatures and wanting a card that can sweep the board enough to fuel the Specter. If there’s a self-mill-style deck that plays a lot of creatures, then I could see this card as a sideboard option, but right now, the card looks like it won’t have a home. Werefox Bodyguard This is one of, if not the strongest versions of Fiend Hunter to see print. This is a card with multiple relevant creature types as both a knight and elf, but most importantly it provides white decks with this effect at instant speed, which will play nicely with The Wandering Emperor in decks that are heavy white. While this card is good, it’s too fragile to rely on as hard removal, so if you’re looking for a permanent answer to a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, this isn’t the card. However, this card is efficient and doubles as a way to protect your own valuable creature in a pinch, and you can reset that creature by sacrificing it for two life. I’d say this card is quite solid, and I expect it to see some play, maybe even in Eternal formats since it also synergizes fairly well with Collected Company by being able to play either at instant speed. Beseech the Mirror Beseech the Mirror reads harmlessly, but this card has broken written all over it. The best application I can think of is casting any of the zero-mana-suspend spells with it. Cards such as Living End can be cast by sacrificing a Vault of Whispers, a token from Khalni Garden, or maybe an Army from the most played card in Magic right now, Orcish Bowmasters. There are a ton of ways to use Beseech the Mirror in Eternal formats and tokens seem to be everywhere these days to turn this into “four mana cast whatever you want.” For Modern, this card also finds The One Ring and can sacrifice it when it gets out of hand. Beseech the Mirror has the highest ceiling of all cards in the format outside of Standard, and with three-year Standard rotations, we may see this enable some incredibly powerful things in Standard at some point. This is the only card in the set I've seen thus far that I think has the potential to be banned at some point somewhere. I'm excited to see how this one plays out. Embereth Veteran As a Mono Red Aggro enjoyer, I’ve been waiting a long time for a nice red one-mana 2/1 that doesn’t have a downside and that isn't rare. We saw numerous printings of cards like Savannah Lions over the years, and now Red Aggro is getting more support. Embereth Veteran has relevant creature types and acts as an instant speed-onboard trick. Embereth Veteran can jump on the back of a creature and give it a hero role, so if you’re playing lots of little creatures, then this one provides value in the face of spot removal. Will this card be able to put Mono Red Aggro back on the map? Very likely not, but it's the type of card that needs to exist for Mono Red to have a fighting chance. I'm glad to see this tool is in the arsenal now. Eriette’s Tempting Apple The only reason I’m including this is the design is cool, and it seems like a card to keep in mind as a Karn, the Great Creator target in Eternal formats. It’s not applicable right now, but it’s a unique effect that could end games with Karn against decks trying to cheat huge creatures into play or even while going infinite with Karn as a win condition to give your own creature haste. Lots of Karn applications make this card interesting to keep note of. The Goose Mother I’ve seen comparisons of The Goose Mother and Hydroid Krasis, and while I understand the comparison, The Goose Mother is a pretty different card. The Goose Mother is much bigger when it enters the battlefield but doesn’t provide that immediate life or card boost. However, rounding up is enormous for this card. You can spend three mana and get a 3/3 flying creature that comes with a food that can be used to sacrifice for a card on the next turn. The Goose Mother can also act as a two-mana 2/2 flying creature that can sacrifice food you got from other sources to provide card advantage. I like that the Goose Mother is flexible everywhere on the mana curve and provides lasting advantage. Is this a slam dunk four-of in every deck like Hydroid Krasis was? Definitely not. Will it find a home in Standard? It has an opportunity, and if this was a normal rotation cycle I’d say yes. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re in a wave of scaling down the power level, and The Goose Mother got in at a bad time. Right now, this is the card I’m most excited to test, as it could be much better or worse than it looks. Bitter Chill Bitter Chill is nothing to write home about, but this is a long-awaited reasonable tool for decks like Mono Blue Spirits. Witness Protection is currently what they use and still may be better for handling blue's problems like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Bitter Chill is able to answer a card like Baneslayer Angel efficiently. If the Bitter Chill is to fall off, it can even replace itself, which is an excellent tool for the new bargain mechanic. Bitter Chill is nothing special, but it will be able to slide into some sideboard slots. Virtue of Loyalty Virtue Of Loyalty falls right into that nice design space, but unfortunately, it isn’t quite good enough. The instant-speed 2/2 vigilance knight is a fine way to spend your mana, but it’s not ideal. The Virtue of Loyalty wants you to have a wide battlefield or else it will be low impact. It allows you to play offense and defense by untapping your creatures, but the text itself is pretty win more. This will be an obscenely powerful Limited card as the boards gum up more and creature sizing becomes more relevant, but this card misses for formats like Standard. While I could see an all-in token-style deck existing, and maybe this squeezes in, there are far too many tools to keep those kinds of decks in check, unfortunately. Bramble Familiar I love the concept of the card, but Bramble Familiar doesn't hit the mark. It's a cheap mana dork, but a payoff means it will play well in both the early and late game. Bramble Familiar would have been better off if it made a 2/2 token that tapped for green mana and then was a sorcery while on adventure. This way, you wouldn’t lose the whole card when you played it on turn two, and you’d have a payoff waiting in exile as the game developed. Conceptually, it's a great card, but in a format with lots of interaction, even with the ability to return itself, Bramble Familiar is often going to get destroyed early and future copies will be awkward to wait on. Decadent Dragon This card looks quite solid. Decadent Dragon allows you to play instant speed with Expensive Taste, essentially giving you both halves of Siphon Insight for one-half of your card. Unfortunately, it does not say play those cards for any color mana. On top of that, you get a four-mana 4/4 dragon that can attack to make treasure, presumably to cast those cards. This card will be phenomenal in situations where black and red decks are omnipresent, much like Standard is right now. Regardless, there are a lot of ways to get extra colored mana with small costs to your mana base, such as playing off-color triomes or fast lands. Decadent Dragon is quite a card engine when the format allows it, and it will surely see some play with black being so dominant at the moment. That’s it for this week. I’m going to get back into the swing of things and play the Arena Open this weekend that is Cube. If there are more interesting cards to talk about next week, we’ll likely look at those before I dive into Wilds of Eldraine Limited. See you then!

Wilds of Eldraine preview season is officially beginning this week! Throne of Eldraine was indisputably one of the most powerful sets of all time, so it's exciting to see what's new this time around. On initial review, I don’t see any Okos, Once Upon a Times or even Cat/Oven-type synergies, so we’re off to a good start. I love the concept of this set. Like most recent Standard sets, we’re getting a bonus sheet that will almost always make drafting more enjoyable and sealed more volatile. Let’s take a look at some of the cards that stood out from the limited amount we’ve seen so far. Syr Ginger, The Meal Ender This card looks like a meme, and it kind of is, but it’s not a complete meme. While it’s probably not quite good enough, it's interesting given how punishing it can be for opponents to play planeswalkers and, most noticeably, because of its synergies with food and treasures. Given enough of either, having the ability to scry through your deck and make a gigantic creature could be a recipe for a playable card in some contexts. I suspect Syr Ginger will remain on the sidelines in Standard and beyond, but there’s some chance to see this feisty little gingerbread legend. Restless Cottage Creature lands are back! While these types of lands that come into play tapped are a bit dated, as mana is very valuable these days, Standard is always better with creature lands. Restless Cottage is a potent threat at 4/4. It is reminiscent of Raging Ravine with the added upside of graveyard control and even life gain in the form of making food. Creature lands do an excellent job of making sure planeswalkers don’t get out of line, and while that hasn’t been a problem in some time, it's awesome to have that safety net. Mana sinks are less important now, but it’s still nice if they fit into your mana base and provide that extra bit of reach. Restless Cottage, while strong, is still worse than Hive of the Eye Tyrant for Eternal formats, so I suspect we won’t be seeing too much of Restless Cottage and other creature lands from this set outside of Standard given how punishing it is to enter tapped. Fausebane Troll An introduction to the role mechanic, Fausebane Troll looks solid. We’re getting a 5/5 trample for four mana, but more than likely we’re going to want to play this on five mana and use its ability immediately to snipe a creature and leave us a vanilla 4/4. While Fausbane Troll would have been good in some formats at some point, anything over four mana in this format needs to be compared to Sheoldred, the Apocalypse right now, and this is worse. Cool card, one of my favorites from the set I’ve seen as a design, but unfortunately I don't think it will find a home. Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator While this card looks solid, it mostly looks like every other five-mana black planeswalker reskinned. It’s five mana, has a minus to make creatures, a plus to get an extra card, and a static ability that makes it so you don’t pay life and instead you exile cards from your deck. This may see some play here and there in Standard, but it looks most interesting in Eternal formats with cards that allow you to pay life for resources. Other than Necropotence, Bolas Citadel is the first card that comes to mind. Regardless, this seems to fit the niche of a playable five-mana planeswalker as a value card in grindy midrange match-ups that will win the game quickly if unanswered, but it also has some niche applications in Eternal formats and Commander. A fine and sometimes playable card, but I hope this isn’t the format's top power level. Kellan, the Fae-Blooded This card, or rather its concept, excites me. Gold adventure cards are an awesome space to explore, and while Kellan seems underwhelming, it’s definitely interesting. We’ve yet to see a true Boros Equipment deck shine in Standard. I always hope it will happen, but it never does. Kellan is no Stoneforge Mystic, but it does provide some slow value, and a 2/2 double strike is a big threat. Kellan seems more like a Pioneer card where the card pool is big enough that maybe you could make something happen, but likely it’s too vulnerable at two toughness and too slow to cast Birthright Boon. I’m not too high on Kellan, but I’m excited to see what other gold adventure cards await. Talion, The Kindly Lord We’re again competing in the mana-cost space with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, and if you’re not providing immediate value, you’re likely losing that battle. Talion has a shot because of how punishing its ability can be to some decks. Linear decks that have tons of cantrips that cost one or two mana could get clocked quickly, and Talion can eat a removal spell while still drawing a card. While this card looks solid, Sheoldred still shines in this mana slot if you want a creature that punishes the opponent for casting tons of cantrips or anything in that space. Talion is kind of cool to think about but ultimately too weak. Lich-Knight’s Conquest This is my current pick for the most fun card I’ve seen thus far. During my first Grand Prix, I played Living Death in Block Constructed, and reading this card brought me back to those simpler times. Several years ago, we had a card Command the Dreadhorde, which was the best way to go over the top of any deck in Standard at the time. Lich-Knight’s Conquest requires more set-up and isn’t as powerful, but it still has quite a powerful effect if you can naturally set it up. One big issue I have with this card, and why I think it will ultimately fall flat, is that between setting it up and its high mana cost, there are still a bunch of cards in Standard, like Graveyard Trespasser, that incidentally mess with graveyards to make these effects more difficult to build around. While I’d like to live in a world where this is a fun Standard build-around, the safeguards built into Magic cards these days to mitigate broken graveyard strategies are too much to overcome. I’d like to make Atraxa great again, but I think it may be difficult. It's definitely a card I’ll have my eye on because it could be quite powerful if it’s viable. Blossoming Tortoise Certainly an interesting card, I wish it had an ability other than boosting lands' power and toughness. Blossoming Tortoise can put any land from your graveyard back into play, not just basic or one you milled, so it has some utility possibilities. As a card that ramps from four to six mana, and hopefully you were able to go from two to four mana, this could be a bridge in a ramp deck. Blossoming Tortoise replaces itself immediately, so you won’t be down a card when you cast it. It threatens to provide an ongoing mana advantage if left unchecked, but it’s also a manageable size to bock or kill easily as only a 3/3 at four mana. Blossoming Tortoise feels a lot more like a Cube or Commander card than a Standard card, but it has potential in a deck if you want to self-mill, find a specific land, and/or just have a threat that provides a mana advantage. This card is also competing directly with Soul of Windgrace, a more powerful card with a similar effect, but the tortoise could still find a home because Soul of Windgrace doesn’t self-mill and requires Jund mana. While the Limited format looks exciting on its face, I’m underwhelmed at the moment with the power level of the cards I’ve seen previewed thus far. Aesthetically the set looks great, but I don’t see anything that jumps out to me as powerful or even just good. We still have plenty of set cards to see, and I’m sure things will get more exciting as they start to roll out.

I was going to take a look at previews this week, but I’m going to push that back a week so I can talk about the recent ban announcement, or rather, the unbans and lack of bans. The return of the scheduled ban announcement is refreshing. People are hyped up and speculating on what exactly will happen. We see people buying Splinter Twins in bulk only to be disappointed again. This time we saw two unbannings and no bannings. People, myself included, have been asking for unbans in both Pioneer and Modern for years. I had one card I thought had been safe to unban for years, and they finally did it, Preordain. Preordain is unbanned in Modern, but a lot has changed since it was banned. The format is more resilient to fast combo, and in fact, fast combo is nowhere to be seen. With Scam shredding your hand then putting a 4/3 Menace in play on turn 1 and Force of Negation being omnipresent, it’s never felt safer to unban a card like Preordain that would only be a small piece of the puzzle to an otherwise broken combo deck. Preordain will see some fringe play, but mostly it’s worse than a newer card, Consider. Consider looks at one less card, but it’s an instant, so it allows you to leave up interaction. It also puts an extra card in your graveyard, so it can even act as a ritual to power out a Murktide Regent in some situations with Delve. Preordain remaining banned for this long was mind-boggling to me, and while I’m glad they finally unbanned it, it has virtually no impact on the Modern format. It will not enable any new decks but may fill some existing decks that want to play cantrips. There was no combo deck eagerly awaiting a slightly upgraded Serum Visions. It’s just another option in the playable format but not in any of the current top-tier decks. The TLDR on Preordain is its unbanning is too little too late. In Legacy, a format I don’t follow closely because of its lack of involvement in organized play, the unbanning of Mind’s Desire is more dangerous than Preordain but not realistically. Mind’s Desire was a previously broken payoff that went way over the top of existing decks in its time, but that time was so long ago it can barely be remembered. There have been broken Storm decks in Legacy that have been in and out of the format for years, and Mind’s Desire isn't much of an upgrade or even playable in these decks. Maybe there’s a cool new way to abuse it and that’s actually awesome. Unbanning Mind’s Desire gives people a new toy to play with that will be fun to explore, but likely it'll end up not mattering and be a fringe card. Since Legacy is always evolving and rarely used at high-level competitive events where thousands of people travel, it’s fine to experiment with a powerful card like Mind’s Desire. I’m fairly sure it’s completely safe and will not be a problem given how good the interactive tools have gotten for decks like Grixis Delver. What didn’t happen is what has me the most concerned. Pioneer being untouched is not my personal favorite choice, but I understand the decision. We’re getting to the point with Pioneer where people have found their pet decks, bought the cards for their decks, and even foiled out their favorite deck. Banning a deck like that or making it worse in any way has financial ramifications for lots of players. While the format looks healthy with its win rate numbers and diversity, looking at a format with only these tools goes against my personal interest. I personally hate Pioneer. I was never huge on hating Modern in the past when it wasn’t the most competitive format. It did some unique and broken stuff that was fun. However, the games and decks in Pioneer aren’t fun for me. Pioneer is just stale. Much like any constructed format, I enjoyed exploring Pioneer the first few weeks, but it gets boring when things don’t change for so long and when every new card creates a new deck that's 3% of the metagame but worse than the top-tier decks. In fact, Pioneer would be a much better format, at least more fun, if they just unbanned everything. That’s not going to happen though, and while Nykthos is a cool card to have in the format, Mono Green has to go. It’s a miserable check on the format and is one of the strongest Magic decks in the format. If I had to make a change to the format personally, I’d ban one card and one card only: Karn the Great Creator. Karn is a miserable card to play against, is too strong, and has the added benefit of shutting off artifacts in a format where Boseiju is already played in high numbers. On top of already being the best card in arguably the best deck, Karn’s existence makes it nearly impossible to play any artifact with an activated ability. Mono Green would be a much different and worse deck without the ability to combo off in a turn and put a bunch of big stuff in play, which would be much better for the format. If Green were to disappear, Lotus Field would probably have a field day on the remaining decks. Without Mono Green, we’d see less aggressive decks capable of goldfishing fast enough to beat Lotus Field, and we’d likely need to see another ban to a Lotus Field combo deck. I’d probably ban something like Sylvan Scrying that will have no impact elsewhere but will make Lotus Field less consistent. Regardless, if Mono Green were to change or get removed from the format, it would have a big impact and make more decks playable that otherwise weren’t as good and create a nice shift in the format. That said, WotC knows far better than I do what’s actually coming out in the next few sets, and it's enough for me if new cards freshen up the format. However, if we continue to power down like we have been in Pioneer's last few sets, then I’d want to see WotC take some action. All in all, the banned and restricted announcement was a whole lot of words when it could have been summed up as basically “No changes in any format.”

As a write this, we have a Modern and LOTR Limited Pro Tour Coming up. While I haven’t played any Modern in a while, I spent tons of time the last few months playing Pioneer. In the testing process for the last Regional Championships, I spent a lot of time trying out almost every deck in Pioneer so I would have a vast understanding of the format. While the format is far from my favorite, it’s important to understand the format if you want to be a competitive Magic player these days. In many discussions with the players I tested with for the RC and my own personal testing, I’d evaluate the Pioneer decks as follows. Keep in mind this is backed up very little by data, but it is included. S-tier Decks I’d register right now Rakdos Sacrifice Rakdos Sac is the superior Rakdos deck in the format, and it makes me wonder why it has such low representation while normal Rakdos Midrange dominates the metagame. This should be the go-to Rakdos deck and should be dominating. This is starting to happen on MTGO, but paper tournaments adjust slower because people don’t have cards for everything and want to play with the $300-worth-of Sheoldreds they bought. Another positive with this deck is it’s super cheap! Rakdos Sac has all the tools, especially with Thoughtseize main deck. If I had to play a Pioneer tournament today, I’d play Rakdos Sac. Lotus Field This deck is underrepresented, and it's the most powerful deck in Pioneer. The issue with the deck is it is linear and has few ways to beat fast goldfish kills. We see Lotus field between 2-5% of the metagame in every major Pioneer event, yet it occupies tons of sideboard space in the form of Damping Sphere and other cards targeting it because it's that powerful. While the deck can be quite hard to learn, it’s incredibly strong once you do. A-tier Decks I’d consider and are solid choices Mono G Devotion I was a bit of a hater of this deck, and I should maybe have it in S-tier. My issues are a combination of inconsistency and lack of agency. It's the second most powerful deck in Pioneer behind Lotus Field, but I feel like if I play this in a tournament, it's hard to get any mirror edge and winning on the draw is tough in some match-ups much like Lotus Field. While I think this is a strong deck, it’s simply not for me. If you’re looking to dive into Pioneer for the first time, this is a great deck with tons of resources available, especially if you just look up Bobby Fortanely on Twitter where you can find any information you could possibly want about the deck. UW Control While I have not played any with the Lotus Field version and little with the non-Lotus version, I’ve played enough against this deck and heard enough from teammates that UW Control is far from a meme, and the data recently has backed it up big time. If you’re looking for a deck with few true bad match-ups and few great match-ups, this one's for you. This deck plays close games and can beat anything if it draws well, especially in the early turns to bridge you to the late game. Tons of people play Rakdos Midrange for agency, and I think UW Control might just be a superior choice if that’s what you’re looking for. Azorius Spirits I have a love-hate relationship with this deck, as we played a Mono U Spirits deck at Worlds last year and absolutely lit up the tournament. However, that was Explorer, and the deck didn’t bridge well into Pioneer because there were tons more decks that it wasn’t so good against. Oddly, Spirits decks have bad match-ups against other slower blue decks, which you’d think the opposite of, but cards like Shark Typhoon and even Hullbreaker Horror out of a deck like Creativity that had lots of removal were a problem. This deck benefited the most from Invasion of Gobakhan and might be the only deck that wants to play it. It’s easy to flip and that it will essentially remove a Shark Typhoon from the game is a huge benefit for this deck. If you asked me a few months ago, I’d put this deck in C- or D-tier, but the addition of the Invasion of Gobakhan and Wedding Announcement sideboard plan has been impressive. I would not be unhappy to play Spirits in a Pioneer event if I expected Rakdos Sac to be underrepresented. Abzan Greasefang Another deck I loved in Explorer but that was too inconsistent, Abzan Grease has improved with more iteration. While I struggle to put it in A-tier, I think it's that or the top of B-tier. It’s fair plan with Chariots can be enough, but it’s a Thoughtseize deck with a potent combo and has potentially the best nut draw in the format of Thoughtsieze into Grisly Salvage into Greasing back a Parhelion II. Without new cards, I likely wouldn’t submit this deck myself, however I don’t think it's a big mistake to register, and it wins a lot of tournaments when people are underprepared. B-tier Not the best decks, but not a huge mistake to register Mono W Humans This would be my aggro deck of choice unless you consider Spirits aggro. It’s a great deck on the play and can beat even its bad match-ups if they stumble because of how its fast clock. It's nothing to write home about, but it’s solid and will continue to get new cards as more Humans are printed. A solid B deck. Boros Convoke Convoke was a deck I was very unimpressed with initially, but as the format has developed it’s found a nice place in the metagame. We all know it’s not Hogaak, but it has some busted draws. This is a deck that iteration, time, and card printings could help. If ignored on any given weekend, it could run over a tournament. If aggro is your thing, this is a solid choice, but I wouldn’t be happy registering this deck. Rakdos Midrange Everything about this deck is mid. It’s the definition of a B-tier deck that feels like it has no good or bad match-ups. It flips coins with basically everything. If you’re looking for a non-linear deck that provides you with agency, this is an inferior choice to both Rakdos Sac and UW Control. I feel registering Rakdos Mid is playing to not lose, as opposed to playing to win. Izzet Creativity Creativity is my pet deck, and I hate to say it, it's probably at the bottom of B-tier at the moment. It’s lost some points across the board, as the metagame developed and new cards have been printed. I prefer versions with Worldspine Wurm or two over Gearhulks. I like the control plan this deck provides, playing with Fable, and being able to close the game with a single card. Unfortunately, this deck has major problems against lots of Thoughtseize and Duress and plays a lot of close games with basically every deck in the format. When this deck was an afterthought, it was great, but Reid had to go and win the Pro Tour with our version of Creativity. It's been on the map, and people know exactly how to approach the match-up. C-tier I personally feel I’d make a mistake registering these decks Anything Five Color Five-color Fires of Invention or Bright to Light are too slow and inconsistent when I tested them. They’ve put up results at times and done absolutely terrible at other times. These decks felt like they had some really bad match-ups. For decks like Rakdos Mid that they were supposed to prey on, I felt like I was only winning half the time because the deck would just start so slowly. I felt like I was playing Standard in Pioneer, which is not a good thing in a format that’s so play/draw dependent. Izzet Phoenix This deck felt too clunky and inconsistent. While I love the UR Shells in Pioneer, this deck is worse than Creativity and doesn’t have a great match-up spread. I’m not surprised this deck comes and goes in the format. Archfiend Combo An interesting deck with some potential, but it’d be a mistake to play it in its current builds right now. This is not the deck if you’re trying to win the tournament you’re playing. If you’re trying to iterate on it, it’s a worthy cause. Bogles A deck that I often say to myself “maybe now’s the time for Bogles.” Unfortunately, it rarely is the time. The deck is reliant on its opening hand and even then it has issues in tons of match-ups when it draws well. A deck with potential, though. Gruul Underpowered and often overrepresented. This deck is fairly weak when it doesn’t draw smoothly or its opponent draws well. With a downtick of Rakdos Midrange, I don’t see a good reason to play this deck right now. D-tier Hopeless decks Selesnya Angels Has some good match-ups at times, but overall too underpowered for this format. I could see certain metagames where this moves up a tier or even two, but Pioneer is slow to change, so right now this deck just ain’t it. Elves Decks like this are fundamentally flawed. They struggle with interaction, sweepers, and faster clocks. Rogues I thought every deck I played against with this deck had to have been bad match-up, but I no longer feel that way after getting more experience with this deck. I’m not going to do an F-tier, because nothing is truly that bad in Pioneer. On any given Sunday, we could see any deck in the format winning the tournament, so if I underrated your deck, prove me wrong! I look forward to learning about Modern this weekend and watching Lord of the Rings Limited from the comfort of my home while I play Diablo IV.

Last weekend we watched the first Modern Pro Tour in what felt like a decade. We started by watching Nathan Steuer, the World and Pro Tour champion, navigate a tough seat in the LOTR booster draft, and we ended with watching a first-time Pro Tour player, Jake Beardsley, win the entire event. Nathan drafted well, but packs broke poorly for him. His pack two was dry, and he ended up getting three Reprieve, which is too many, but there was no escape unless he passed one for a worse card the first time he saw it. This is my first time in years caring about what Modern has looked like. The format looked rejuvenated and healthy. While there’s a lot of nonsense going on in the format, there are a lot of checks and balances in the form of free cards. Endurance, Grief, Fury, Subtlety, Solitude, and the cycle of Forces have all changed the format for the better. These cards make it difficult to play unfair strategies that dominated Modern in the past, and in a world of decks that lean to the fair side, it makes sense we saw such a spectacular showing from Tron. Tron wasn’t on my radar leading up to this event, even though I was a part of the Handshake Discord. The team worked on and decided to play the deck during in-house testing, which is refreshing to see that there’s still weight to getting together in person and discussing things. Discord testing is an incredible tool, especially for organizing thoughts, but there’s nothing like ironing out ideas in an in-person meeting and discussing the positives and negatives of each individual choice. Christian Calcano, one of the most well-liked people in the Magic community for his relentlessly positive energy, made it all the way to the finals in an inspiring moment for many, myself included. Christian went from basically out of the game, decided to pursue Magic again, and within a few months he’s within a game of winning the Pro Tour and qualified for Worlds. Calcano lost to first-time PT player Jake Beardsley in the finals, which is yet another inspiring story. Many of us, myself included, did poorly at our first Pro Tour, so it was heartwarming to see someone have immediate success, especially someone who appears incredibly passionate about the game. I was excited to watch one of my closest friends, Alexander Hayne, play a win and in. Hayne did virtually zero testing for the event. This is a classic Hayne maneuver that has made his stellar results far worse than they would be. He’s one of the most talented, if not the most talented, Magic players on the planet, and his motivation is all that holds him back. Watching him play a win and in for T8 was exciting, and it had the worst possible outcome as a spectator and friend with an unintentional draw after seven extra turns. One of the biggest downsides of paper Magic is that this outcome occurs far more often. This, along with some concessions in big moments, haunts the paper Pro Tour, while online we get bugs and crashes in its place. There’s no perfect system yet. We saw arguably the greatest player of all time, Kai Budde, step back onto the Sunday stage after a long hiatus from the game. Kai was always an idol of mine. I’ve gotten to know him in the past few years, and on top of his incredible, analytical brain for the game, he’s just a great person to boot. Kai’s story inspires me. He’s able to put the game down to live his life and do what he needs to, but then come back, put in some effort, and get things done. We all know I deserve all the credit though, right? Two players were in PT LOTR Top 8 who also were in the previous PT Top 8. Simon Nielsen and Javier Dominguez both having back-to-back T8s is incredible. While we will see more of this now because the Pro Tour size is smaller, until it ticks back up, it’s still an incredible accomplishment to have back-to-back PT T8s, as that rarely occurred in the past. Simon is another example of a person who is almost always in positive spirits and lifts up the people around him. He’s clearly one hell of a Magic player, and obviously his own talent and hard work are huge factors in his success, but Team Handshake has also played a part. Javier, also of Team Handshake, is arguably the best player of the current generation. He's a World Champion, Mythic Championship Champion, and he has tons of top finishes under his belt. Javier is the perfect example of what tilts me about the Hall of Fame not existing anymore. He’d be a slam dunk to be inducted. He's also one of the nicest people on the planet, and someone pointed out that this Top 8 might have been the nicest of all time. I’d be hard-pressed to disagree. Of the six who I know personally, they’d probably all be in my Top 10 nicest people on the Pro Tour. Maybe nice people don’t finish last? Personally, I was trying to take a little break from Magic. I’ve been focusing on my family and experiences with them this summer. As I finish writing this, I’m about to get ready for the Pink concert with my wife. However, despite having been comfortable playing whenever I can, the Pro Tour is so special that watching it from home for the first time in nearly a decade gives me the fire to pursue it. Maybe that fire will fade in a few days, weeks, or months, but right now I want to try and work my way back. I mostly blame Hayne for this, as he’s a close personal friend and I’d love to team back up with him. Unfortunately for me, I’m not a big fan of Pioneer and Modern and they're a big part of competitive MTG these days. I used to bite the bullet and play formats I didn’t enjoy much to get to play the others, but it was easier to travel and reliably reach my goals with tons of opportunities. Now, opportunities are few and far between, so even though the fire’s burning right now, there’s no place for me to grind toward a goal. I’ll always be a fan of the Pro Tour, regardless if I’m competing in them or not. I’ve often thought, more so recently, about channeling my desire to grind into more content, so maybe I’ll move more in that direction. For now, I’m going to finish the summer with my family and get back on the grind when the kids are back at school. We got a few peeks at cards from Wilds of Eldraine at the PT, and I’ll be looking over what’s available next week. See you then!

I mentioned last week that I’m taking a break from playing a lot of MTG. I’m still helping friends test for PT Barcelona, but I was reaching the point of burnout, and I’m enjoying this step back for the summer. One beautiful thing about this current system is that I don’t feel pressured to go out every weekend and play a tournament. If I want to play the next RC, I have a ton of time to qualify for it. I’m not a huge fan of how this RC system works for me. Many of my local friends have aged out. Having to requalify for the RC repeatedly would be fine if the RC felt special, but in my case, it's just another Grand Prix-type event. However, there are some good things going on with the system for a lot of players, which is awesome. For me though, it still feels like a little is missing. I came up with a list of five things I want to see moving forward. Keep in mind these are changes that would make my own engagement with Magic better and that wouldn't necessarily be best for everyone. 1. Limited Regional Championships Unfortunately, I assume at least day one would need to be Sealed Deck, and I know that means something like nine rounds presumably with the same deck. Years ago, they mitigated variance by giving us multiple sealed decks in events like Team Sealed. That would be ideal, but nonetheless, there are a lot of Limited players who want to play high-level Limited. Outside of the PT, which there are very few opportunities to qualify for, there have been no Limited RCs and no mention of any in the future. I enjoy Magic the most when I’m thinking on the fly and making decisions with incomplete information, like in the Booster draft or Limited. I don’t know many people who absolutely hate Limited, and if it was a Limited RC they’d try to not go if they otherwise would. I do know plenty of people who have these feelings about Modern or Pioneer. Moving forward, I’d like to see one Limited RC a year. 2. Bring Back the Hall of Fame The HoF may seem like a very small thing in the grand scheme of things but to a subset of players who have been playing competitive Magic for a decade or more, it’s a potential achievement or aspiration that costs very little. It stuck with me when years ago Sam Black said it was a motivator for him. It was one of the major ways that Pro Players could push themselves, and a carrot at the end of the stick that was a minimal cost to WotC. While the discussion ended up toxic at times, I’d like to find a way to remove that aspect. Since there’s no real cost to WotC these days with size given they’re not paying flights or appearance fees, there should just be a threshold at which you’re inducted. An agreeable number of top finishes or contributions or whatever. Obviously, this would be hard to determine, but the bias in the voting should be removed as much as possible. Either way, a return to the HoF would keep me engaged and would mean a lot to players as a way to discuss elite competitive Magic players, what they’ve accomplished, and how they’ve helped the community. The HoF would give me something as a long-time Pro player and something to aspire to that would keep me engaged. Right now, other than “win the tournament” there aren't many goals to use for aspiration. 3. A Return to Team Events I will be surprised if we don’t see team events return at some point because they’re popular and exciting. It’s been so long since we’ve had them between the MPL years and the Pandemic, that it’s time to bring them back. I would go far out of my way to participate in a team event with friends and I know others would too. Even the team series was incredible. I’ve talked to some of the younger players on the Pro Tour who didn’t get an opportunity to participate in the Team Series, and they thought it sounded amazing and wished they were playing the Pro Tour when it existed. Regardless, my favorite thing about Magic is playing with my friends. With Commander being so popular, I think I’m not alone in that. People just want to play a game they like with people they know and like. Team events were an awesome way to do that. 4. An Online Pro Level Tournament Series with Continuity But Siggy, we have the Arena Championships and the MOCS! These unfortunately are not something that motivates many people. They’re cool tournaments, but they miss a huge element that the fan base of competitive Magic has been requesting for years—a way to string together invites. Continuity. When I was a kid playing PTQs, my biggest goal was to “get on the train.” Playing in every event was something I aspired to, and while you can play some of these events, there’s no way to go from one to the next. In fact, as far as the Arena Championship goes, I’d rather see them invite back the top finishers that didn’t get the Worlds invites than some people who missed in the Arena Qualifiers with five wins. I’m a family man now, and traveling is very costly. Not just financially, but the stress it puts on myself, my kids, and my family. It would be awesome if I could fill my competitive void online in a system that is reliable. I’ve played the MOCS, and while it was fun, it didn’t mean much to me at the time. Just another tournament. It didn't feel much different than being invited to Twitch Rivals or something because it wasn’t leading me anywhere. You can get to Worlds that way, but Worlds at a bigger size also seems like another PT with a different title attached. While I have no gripes with bigger Worlds, it isn’t a prize I’d covet as much as when it was 24-person Worlds. I’d love to see a variation in competitive circuits that could fill the void for people who can’t travel or live too far from the Pro Tours they want to attend. 5. More Opportunities to Qualify Right now, one of the things I miss most was being able to play for my desired goal on any given weekend. I want to play in the Pro Tour? I find a GP or PTQ and go get it. Right now, it's one step removed. I want to play on the Pro Tour? Find a local RCQ, win one, and then I can play the PTQ at a (much) later date. That’s not as motivating as being able to accomplish my goal on any given weekend. We are seeing more of these Limited “GPs” being announced and hopefully they continue to have these regularly. I’d even attach some to RCs if possible. Something for RC players to do on day two of the RC if they didn’t make it but still are aiming to play the Pro Tour instead of just starting right back at the beginning. All in all, any of these changes would probably keep me motivated to keep grinding away. I have no doubt that we’ll see some things change as things move forward and am hopeful that at least one or two of these issues is addressed in the next year or two. For now, I’m going to take next week off and go camping with my family. It will be a good time to reflect on everything going on and light up the fire again.

This past week has been slow for me regarding Magic. I haven't enjoyed playing as much since I don't have any upcoming events. I went hard for the past few events and was reaching the point of burnout, so I’ve taken my foot off the gas and have enjoyed playing other games and spending time with my family this summer. However, a new Pioneer deck has popped up, and I wanted to take it for a spin to maintain my firm grasp on the Pioneer format. At RC Dallas, cftsoc made waves with a new deck they designed focusing on the two-card combo of Archfiend of Dross and Metamorphic Alteration. This deck has been invited on since their Grixis version, and I was drawn most to the Dimir-based version. I’ve since seen the deck pop up in various challenge Top 8s, which solidifies that, at least in part, it's the real deal and can compete. I was a huge Inverter fan, and this deck is an almost identical shell with a different combo. Here’s the list I was running: 3 Archfiend of the Dross 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy 3 Chrome Host Seedshark 4 Consider 4 Thoughtseize 3 Metamorphic Alteration 1 Duress 1 Negate 1 Drown in the Loch 1 Heartless Act 4 Fatal Push 4 Dig Through Time 4 Watery Grave 2 Hive of the Eye Tyrant 1 Hall of Storm Giants 2 Swamp 2 Island 4 Clearwater Pathway 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire 1 Otawara, Soaring City 2 Fabled Passage 4 Darkslick Shores 1 Power Word Kill 1 Shipwreck Marsh 1 Sheoldred's Edict 1 Make Disappear 1 Duress 2 Languish 1 The Scarab God 2 Ray of Enfeeblement 1 Necromentia 1 Pithing Needle 2 Disdainful Stroke 2 Reckoner Bankbuster 2 Mystical Dispute 1 Unlicensed Hearse It’s impossible to get a great grasp of a Pioneer deck without playing hundreds of matches because of the format's depth. For that reason, I’ll have to make some generalizations. I’ll start with what impressed me about the deck. I liked that the fair plan was solid. The Chrome Host Seedhsarks were excellent in most of the fair match-ups. They weren't easy to kill, blocked well against decks like Mono W Aggro, and provided something the deck needs in midrange match-ups, which is a way to generate value. Thoughtseize is potentially the best, or at least, the most important card in Pioneer at the moment. It solves tons of problems, allows you to interact with any deck in the format in a meaningful way, and goes nicely with Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy. Jace is one of the key ways this deck can generate value and additional cards. Back in Inverter days, Jace, Wielder of Mysteries did a lot of the heavy lifting in this regard. Because we currently aren’t playing a card like that, I liked the full four copies of Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy. The mana in this deck is vastly improved from Inverter days when I was playing Choked Estuary and Fetid Pools. The mana is smoother now, which used to be one of the weakest points of Inverter. That’s a big plus. One of the last things I loved about this deck was that Archfiend was a better fair card than Inverter. It’s essentially a three-turn clock on its own because you can usually get a single trigger out of it along the way, and it also has more fair game support with Chrome Host Seedshark. There are a few things that didn't impress me. I didn't like the combo itself. It wasn't as clean as Inverter’s combo. You could set it up, but there were a ton of ways to meaningfully interact with the combo. Almost every game I won was on the back of how good my interaction was between Push and Thoughtseize, and it was less about what I was actually doing to win. This made Metamorphic Alteration a terrible draw in most games. I wouldn’t say Thassa’s Oracle was an all-star in the old Inverter deck, but it did something whereas Alteration is basically a blank. Even when you draw the Archfiend with it, it requires dancing around some stuff. For this reason, it's crucial for Duress and Thoughtseize to provide information on the opponent’s hand. I didn't like how poor the options were for a transitional package against decks like control. You don’t want to try to combo against an all-instant speed, interactive, mostly creatureless deck. The sideboard doesn't have good options in those match-ups. The current plan is to use Jace, Duress effects and Counter to hopefully win on the back of Seedhark, but it’s too anemic. I’ve seen Hullbreaker Horror in this before, but the deck runs so few lands that it seems too expensive. The same would be true for Shark Typhoon. You’ll be missing land drops and that’s not the battle you want to fight in that case. I considered trying Liliana of the Veil to supplement the Duress and Thoughtseize package, especially because this deck can function on fewer resources. I didn't like that the engines were very poor. I ran out of gas in many games, which is unacceptable in today's era of Magic. You need to spend your mana productively or else you will get buried. You can get bailed out from this issue at times by putting the combo together to end the game immediately, but they’ll be able to interact in some way if you fall too far behind. I won a lot more than lost with this deck, but that was because of factors outside of the combo. The combo came together some, but mostly I won with Sharks and Archfiends, which is a good thing. However, it makes me question if the combo is even worth playing or if Chrome Host Seedshark is better than it looks. It’s always impressed me in every deck, so maybe it's worth experimenting more. Overall, the deck is solid, but I’d label it tier two. I wouldn't play it if I was going to an event this weekend. The deck needs a lot of tuning. While it’s likely good against linear decks that lack interaction, it feels like it will be weak against people trying to interact because its engines are much worse than the opposition. It’s harder to combo because it’s easy for them to break up by killing your Archfiend in response to a Metamorphosis or holding up a Boseiju. I was impressed enough with the UB shell that I may experiment more by tuning it, working on the sideboard plans, or removing the combo for a better fair plan. Regardless, if you’re like me, you may not have played with the deck and wondered about its strength. While it’s not top tier, it will likely be around for a bit, and I think the deck can shine in certain metagames. If you want to keep jamming the deck you’ve been playing, you can mostly ignore this deck's existence. If you’re looking for a project to work on in Pioneer and something new to learn and explore, this deck has some potential but likely involves a good transformational package that can remove the combo and sideboard into something more grindy and efficient.