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I recently had the pleasure of playing my first Pro Tour in quite a while. Ever since the change to organized play, I have made minimal effort in playing Pro Tours. Instead, I have focused my energy in Magic on my writing, streaming, and an overall more casual approach. They always rope you back in somehow, though. I qualified directly through Arena, and while the chances to play PTs will likely be few and far between, it's enough for me if that's my sole source of invites. I tested with TCGPlayer, the team I've always played with, for this event. While I couldn't mention a team that didn't approach me in some way, Matt Nass and Sam Pardee are two players I've tested with for as long as I was a mainstay on the PT, and my loyalty lies with them completely. It still feels good to be asked. That never changes. Testing for this event was tumultuous. We had a tight turnaround with about seven or eight days from set release to deck submission. A lot needed to be done in that window. Standard is large, meaning a new set will usually have less impact, but it's still evolving, which has become a hang-up for many teams. Izzet Prowess was our deck to beat. It ended up being 30% of the field, which we more or less predicted, especially as our frontrunners during testing tended to be variants of the deck. We all knew that Izzet Prowess was the best deck regarding how much it punished specific brews. Cards like Resonating Lute, Professor Dellian Fel, and even Together as One seemed like promising new cards to play with, but alas, they all folded to a deck with a few copies of Spell Pierce. Even though Izzet Prowess punished all of our brews and warped the format entirely, we recognized that Prowess beating Landfall in the past didn't hold up in testing. Partway through the process, we added some Sunderflocks to our sideboard. We felt we had flipped the Landfall matchup from close to solidly favorable, which held up in the tournament, at least against the Mono Green version. The version that the team of the eventual champion, Nathan Steuer, brought to the event was tough for us. We tested a white splash with Erode, but it didn't get past phase one. That was almost certainly a hole in our testing. We had two players planning to play Landfall, but they mostly played the villain for us rather than having us improve the deck, since most believed that Prowess would be favored. David Rood was one of these players. Twenty-four hours before submission, he was 99% sure he was playing Landfall, then two hours later, he was sleeving up and tracking down his Prowess cards because of the Sunderflock package. He, like the rest of us, felt that it flipped the matchup in a meaningful way. Here's the list I ultimately registered: I was nervous registering this deck, as I didn't feel entirely confident with it, especially after getting slapped around by Edgar Magalhaes in mirrors the night before submission. However, I felt the most comfortable in the event in mirrors, though I lost more than I won, with every game going to the person on the play. The games were often long and close, generally coming down to that last bit of tempo. One thing that made us fairly excited to play this deck version was that most people online were moving to Colorstorm Stallion. In our testing, the Stallion was not only a serious liability against Landfall, but it seemed to make the deck clunky in mirrors. Simply plotting a Slickshot before a Stallion hit the table made the Stallion much less castable without a big punishment waiting in the wings. I've been asked a few times why I didn't play the deck Matt Nass and Noah Mah played. While Matt didn't win, I believe his was the best deck in the room. Matt's brain chose a poor time to stop working, something I'm very sympathetic to, as I had similar things happen at the event. His deck was a massive favorite against the Landfall deck, which Nathan even agreed with at a post-event lunch. In fact, if I were looking to RCs in the next two weeks, I'd heavily test Matt's deck and look back to Izzet Prowess with Elusive Otters and no crabs, with the goal of trying to attack what is sure to be a Selesnya takeover. I didn't play the deck because we barely played any games with it and weren't confident it was good against Prowess. To be clear, I still am unsure it's actually good against a practiced and knowledgeable Prowess pilot. However, seeing Matt's deck for the first time, I told him with confidence that he would be a solid favorite against Prowess in the event and that he may lose some Top 8 equity with his deck choice if Prowess players can formulate plans and workarounds in the matchup. Ultimately, there were no Top 8 Prowess decks, so Matt's lane looked very good for a repeat PT win. However, as said before, his brain stopped functioning during a key spot, and he threw away a game or two against arguably the best player in the world right now, Nathan Steuer. Players like that will punish your mistakes. I finished 9-7, which is a finish I'm happy with. I lost my last three rounds in Constructed and felt guilty playing them with intrusive thoughts of scooping and even having conversations with my opponents, none who I knew and all very pleasant opponents. I have no interest in going to Europe for Modern and coming home with Covid, as being laid out an extra few days made that even clearer. I had an absolute blast at the event. There was only one damper, which was a self-inflicted issue against a teammate. I played Edgar Magalhaes in the second draft finals. I was 5-0 in Limited and had a strong Silverquill aggro deck. I had played a Concilator's Duelist on a cluttered board and drew an Adventurous Eater. Casting the Adventurous Eater, I realized I had a loop with the two cards. However, I only had the Duelist in play once before in the match prior and only killed Snarl Song tokens with it, so the only initial shortcuts I had in my head were from when I read the card in Early Access. Long story short, I tried to instantly flicker Adventurous Eater when I untapped with it several times. On the last use of black mana spent, I remembered an Arena opponent killing me by removing a blocker. While my plan was to kill his token with it (thankfully, I didn't because then neither of us may have noticed), I chose to remove a 3/3 blocker instead, which immediately clicked with him. He picked up my card, read it, and said we needed to call a judge. He was right, of course. While not much damage was done, and we were able to rewind to the beginning of the turn, it looked awful. The judges reasonably questioned me as to why I'd have processed it that way. It was simply a case of me creating mental shortcuts and relying only on Arena experiences, which created an awkward situation I still think about and feel guilty about days later. I was a massive favorite at that point in the game, but if I had been allowed to make that play, then it would have been worse than the available legal play of just keeping my Eater in combat. Not only was the play weird and looked bad, but it also would have been wrong. I ended up losing a tough-to-lose game, which relieves some of the guilt, but I still don't like that the situation happened at all. Overall, I was happy with how I drafted. While my seats were relatively easy to draft, I navigated them well and ended up with likely the best deck at my table both times. My opponents' decks in the finals were very good, but mine were excellent. The number one thing I wanted out of this was spending time with my friends and seeing everyone again. I got that. My number two was drafting in the big leagues and proving to myself I still have it, and I definitely did that, too. Moving forward, I plan to help my teammates with Limited, as some of them are younger and not as confident. Being part of the process is my favorite part. The tournament is just where we get to display the work we put in, but the part I enjoy the most is figuring out the puzzle, not necessarily putting it together at the end. There are still a lot of Strixhaven Limited events on the horizon, so I'll share some more specific thoughts on the format next time. For now, I'm going to rest up, kick this illness, and get back into fighting shape. Congrats to everyone who met their goals at the event. There were so many people who were happy to win their final matches, and those smiles and that passion are just awesome. I was glad to see it in person again. Hopefully, I'll be back when I want to be and can experience it again, but I won't pressure myself to play a bunch of PTs in a row like in the past. There are so many important things in life, and while I absolutely love Magic, there are several ways to engage with it, which is enough for me.

Early Access recently ended for Secrets of Strixhaven on MTG Arena. For the first time in a while, I can't wait to get back to playing it. Some of the latest Limited sets have been a bit tame, or I knew I'd quickly burn out on them after playing a few times. Strixhaven, however, is an absolute banger. We once again have our bonus sheet fully intact, and on top of that, we also have a set that's as soupy as you can get— good fixing, good card draw, solid creatures, and a solid suite of removal. Converge is present in almost every deck, and I've been very happy with the converge cards I've come across. Because of treasures, various green ramp, and a plethora of lands, the fixing is great. The set feels deep. I was often struggling to find cuts rather than playables, unlike a set like Lorwyn, where you'd often have to play a few stinkers because the commons were very weak. This isn't the case with Strixhaven. While I only had a few drafts under my belt, my early assessment is that there's only one strong aggro deck—Orzhov. Orzhov's game plan is to snowball effects that trigger when you target a creature with a spell. This means removal or any random combat trick will generate more value on its face. I often tried to draft streamlined two-color decks, but they always turned into multicolor super decks. Let's take a look at a handful of my decks from Early Access. Prismari Converge As you can see, this was a normal Prismari deck until I opened a Together as One, which made me want to splash more cards, and I picked up a Snarl Song and a Quandrix. Because of my access to powerful converge spells, I played a Fields of Strife instead of a mountain to support larger convergence. Colorstorm Stallion was impressive. I thought it would be weaker than the common removal I passed up, but I realized its strength the first time I drew it with Rapturous Moment. I triggered it multiple times in the same turn, creating an entire battlefield of massive horses and one-shotting my opponent. This sequence will likely be common and is one to watch for. Prismari is one of the frontrunners for my favorite archetype. It has access to a lot of card advantage, and nearly all gold uncommons are premium. Additionally, it supports converge incredibly well, with access to card draw to find mana sources, as well as Seize the Spoils and Goblin Glasswright providing treasures to juice up converge costs. Quandrix Converge Quandrix may be the archetype best suited to converge. It has access to Shared Roots out of the bonus sheet and to Studious First-Year, one of the best commons in the set. Most converge cards are strong if supported, even though they are not all equal. This deck had the option of playing three Transcendent Archaic. I could have reasonably gotten away with it, which is a wild thing to say about a seven-drop. Regardless, I was getting the card during the last pick. I'd prefer not to play more than one copy, but in the absence of other good card draw and top end, it does the trick if you can reliably ramp to it. Noxious Newt is solid but not as good as Frog Butler. Providing only one color of mana is a worse starting point in a set like this, where you want to splash around. Archaic's Agony is one of the worst converge spells, and one you want to hit all five mana colors on or else its playability drops off a cliff. You can play it for four but not happily. One card that surprised me was Fractalize, the last card I included. Fractalize plays well as a combat trick that can make their creature into a 1/1 in combat for a single blue mana, but it also scales into the game and can be used as a Fireball, making an unblocked creature deal damage equal to the amount you can spend on it. While I hate combat tricks, I feel like I'll lose to Fractalize out of nowhere in spots or use it to steal games. This deck was propped up heavily by its rares. Even though it was good, I would have liked it much less if I lacked a couple of the rares, like Quandrix. It's worth noting that both green dragons I played have anti-synergy with converge, and it comes up more than I'd like. While I did not cascade into Archaic's Agony with Quandrix, my opponent did, and it likely cost them the game. Witherbloom Converge Most of the decks I drafted touched on converge in at least some manner. Here's another example of that. I finished this draft in its entirety because it was the last deck I drafted in early access and managed to get all seven wins. Studious First-Year is a stellar common. When you get a few, you can go crazy with how you want to approach the draft. This deck started as Quandrix, but Witherbloom ended up so open that I was pushed into it after tabling a lot of cards. This draft was very informative, as I learned how strong a few cards were. First, the deck's MVP was Arcane Omens. It was obscene in every game, even against aggro, because I ramped it out early for a large amount with Studious First-Year. I ramped on turn two, made a meaningful play on three, and then boom, they had no hand. My cheap creatures, like Postmortem Professor and Teacher's Pest, were cheap plays that got me on the board and triggered infusion for my Follow the Lumarets or Old-Growth, Educator, though my deck wasn't fully focused on infusion. I thought Professor might end up being pretty bad in this deck, but I convinced myself to play it because it could be used on defense in conjunction with Strixhaven Skycoach. Professor and Skycoach overperformed. My previous experiences with Skycoach were that I had too few creatures to crew it, but it wasn't an issue. A solid interaction I discovered was Applied Geometry on Strixhaven Skycoach. Skycoach finds you the mana to cast Geometry initially, and then you get another land to continue making land drops. The best part is you don't usually have to worry about them having removal for Skycoach since it's a vehicle when you target it, but you get a permanent 6/6 flyer that draws you a land. You can always target a land with Geometry to avoid these things, but having the flying and the extra land in hand has a lot of value. Witherbloom, the Balancer has been a big disappointment. It's playable, not that exciting, and the affinity effect was a downside because it ruined converge on multiple occasions. I will play it if I can cast it, but I'm not going to take it over a good common removal or anything. I was impressed with Follow the Lumarets in this archetype. I worried that it'll be tough to trigger infusion reliably in a soupier deck, but its fail case isn't bad. I'm happy to play two copies in a deck like this if I can trigger infusion occasionally. Strixhaven is my favorite Limited set that's come out since Final Fantasy. Some of the formats that have come out since have been fun, Strixhaven is incredibly deep. While decks will often look similar and soupy, there are so many cards to explore that it makes every draft feel different. I suspect I'll like this set even more than Final Fantasy when all is said and done. I'm prepping hard for the Pro Tour, so I plan to dive deep into every archetype and Standard deck, and I will update on all that as soon as I can. If you were on the fence about playing Strixhaven because Lorwyn and TMNT weren't your thing, Strixhaven is the polar opposite of Lorwyn, so you should enjoy it quite a bit.

Last week, I had some thoughts on some of the newly revealed cards. While the full spoiler isn't out as I'm writing this, it will be by the time you're reading it. Regardless, I found some more spicy cards to talk about. Let's dig in. Emeritus of Abundance Emeritus of Abundance is yet another prepared creature with an iconic spell attached. While I've loved Regrowth since I first started playing Magic, this card doesn't give me that Regrowth feeling. It feels more like Den Protector, but it's substantially worse in most cases. Den Protector's evasive ability wasn't irrelevant, but its most important part was the ability to unmorph at instant speed. This allowed for sequences like playing it on five mana, passing the turn with a removal spell or counterspell, and using unspent mana at the end step, then spending it during the following turn if necessary. We lose this line with Emeritus. Contextually, Standard's green decks are far from interactive, and this kind of card is better with cheap interaction and in grinding-focused games. The best green decks in Standard at the moment are Landfall and Cub decks, both of which are more about explosive starts. For all these reasons, I'm lower on Emeritus of Abundance, but it still has a nice-sized body for turn three or to play off of an Elf, so you don't immediately die to removal. It also attacks and blocks, which is fairly big. I'll test this card and think it has potential, even if we only see it in Nature's Rhythm decks. Emeritus of Conflict Before the set's release, I made a prediction on which iconic spells we were going to see, which Mark Rosewater spoiled. I nailed every one of them, including this Lightning Bolt. This creature is interesting because it becomes prepared. It's not easy to cast three spells in a turn, and it likely won't happen often. However, if I understand this correctly, prepared spells will count towards this number, including the spell itself. While it's not easy to get rolling, once you get it prepared, you may be able to do something like cast Lightning Bolt, two more spells, then cast a second Lightning Bolt when it becomes prepared again, even on the same turn. The downside is that this is a mediocre creature to start the game. It's likely best in a deck like Prowess with multiple cantrips, such as Opt and Sleight of Hand, to keep the spells flowing. I suspect this card is too much work for the payoff and that it will have no life in Standard. This is the kind of card that will likely get most of its shine in Cube or something as a filler two-drop that has some cool, albeit unspectacular, moments. Germination Practicum Here is another cycle of mythic rares with the new mechanic paradigm. We get to cast this spell every turn as long as it resolves initially. This is a massive payoff for decks with a lot of mana creatures and Cubs, but it's also slow. The current Cub deck can consistently put a Craterhoof in play by turn four or, at the least, an Ouroboroid on turn three, and this is worse than both of those plays. Paradigm is awesome conceptually, and this may not be the best showcase for it. That it's a lesson means this or another one from the cycle may see some play in a format like Pioneer with the learn mechanic. Regardless, this card is too slow for modern Standard, while it would have been strong in the past. The paradigm mechanic looks like a lot of fun. Even if nothing jumps out as notably strong, they will likely have places as sideboard bullets in any deck that plays learn cards. It's also important to keep these kinds of bullets in mind if they ever revisit the learn mechanic. Erode There was a time when this card would have been printed in Standard, and people would have gone nuts about reprinting Path to Exile. While that may no longer be the case, I suspect this card will see some play. The biggest issue with a card like this, compared to a card like Get Lost, is that it's horrible to play in the early game. Spending mana early to crack map tokens is not advancing the state of your board in a meaningful way, so the maps sit there for a bit. Erode, however, will let your opponents develop mana too early and pull ahead on the board. Mana spent in 2026 is more powerful than mana spent in 2010, so the downside is more massive. That doesn't mean we won't see a few copies of Erode in white decks, but we likely won't see full play sets of Erode. I like having cards like this in rotation to keep deck building in check and force people to play some basic lands. Despite that, we won't see much of this card because of its brutal cost to cast it early, and Standard is faster than ever, making it important to cast cards like this early, especially if you're playing a control deck. It's cool to see an homage to Path to Exile that can also hit planeswalkers, but the secret is out that Path to Exile is not what it used to be. Flow State Flow State is interesting, reminiscent of Explosive Iteration, and with a little work, it will net you a two-mana Divination. I've seen a lot of people high on this card, but I'm not as convinced yet. We already have Accumulate Wisdom in Standard. At full capacity, this card is not as good, but you get to play it in other decks. Specifically, I could see it in Spellementals or Izzet Prowess. As far as Izzet Prowess is concerned, this has a shot at replacing Stock Up. It doesn't mean that you're casting spells on the first few turns rather than creatures, so I'm not so sure. It looks better in a deck like Spellementals, but it could likely find a home in either. One thing about Flow State is that you need a nice mix of sorceries and instants. Redundant copies of Flow State help fuel each other, so you can go lighter on sorceries. Regardless, this card should see a good amount of play as a piece of advantage and selection, with a fail state of being a sorcery-speed Anticipate. Impractical Joke Impractical Joke is a new, cheap removal spell that should work well in Izzet decks along with Flow State. Playable cheap sorceries are harder to come by, so this one does the trick. This is an awesome, efficient removal spell for hitting that third point of toughness to kill something like a Surrak or Ashling for a single mana. I'm hesitant to play a card like this in a format where Slickshot Show-Off is in the most popular deck. It's also inconvenient when you're on the play to have this in your hand against a mana elf if you plan to spend two mana on turn two. There's a downside to having too many sorceries in place of instants, but I still suspect we'll see many copies of Impractical Joke in red decks moving forward, in both the main deck and sideboard. I'll be back next week with some more previews. So far, it looks like Izzet gets even more goodies. I already have my Steam Vents playset packed in my suitcase for the PT. Hopefully, the team and I find something even better to play, though. See you next week when the full set is available.

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