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It came fast, but I believe we have access to the previews of the entire Airbender set. At first glance, I'm excited to dive into a new Universes Beyond set, and I hope this one is more Final Fantasy than Spider-Man. It's a bad sign of things to come if this set were to flop like Spider-Man. However, I've already seen quite a few cards that have me excited. Let's take a look. Shared Roots That's right, Rampant Growth is back in Standard. Shared Roots is a functional reprint of Rampant Growth with the upside of being the Lesson card type. While there are no Learn cards in the set, there are plenty of cards that make Lessons matter. Ignoring that for now, Rampant Growth is long overdue for a Standard return. There were a lot of cards that, at one point, WotC decided were "too strong" for Standard, such as Rampant Growth and Mana Leak, but Magic has seen an insane amount of power creep since then, and it's time we bring these iconic cards back. Rampant Growth's existence allows for potential ramp strategies to exist, but it's difficult to build with because if your deck is too reliant on casting ramp on turn two, you'll suffer when you don't draw Shared Roots. While I'm excited to see Rampant Growth return, and I think it will see play, I'm not sure it will be as much of a staple as it has been in previous printings. Threats are stronger these days, so you don't have time to set up without ways to reset the board. I'm excited to see how this plays out. Accumulate Wisdom Hands down, Accumulate Wisdom is one of my favorite cards I've seen. I'm sad it's an uncommon, specifically because of how crazy it could be in Limited at common, much like its predecessor, Accumulated Knowledge. Accumulate Wisdom is a baseline Anticipate, which saw a small amount of Standard play. Accumulate Wisdom is an exciting tool because of its late-game upside of turning a two-mana draw into a three-card draw. Looking at this card, the first thought is about the number of playable Lessons. There is a smattering of them in this set, and I'd guess there are enough that are playable, especially if we end up in a format after the bans where Quench is a playable card, as there is a Lesson version of that in the set, and the cards should play well together. Maybe we can also include this in a deck with Shared Roots. Ideally, you can fill your graveyard quickly, chain a few copies of Accumulate Wisdom together, and the game will get easy from there. There's a lot of iterating that can be done to make this card reach its full potential. I'm also excited to see how these cards could play alongside Learn cards in a format like Pauper. It might be time to dust off those Divide by Zeroes in your bulk box. Great Divide Guide Great Divide Guide is a solid two-mana mana dork that taps for any color and turns all your lands into "Utopia" lands. Most importantly, Great Divide Guide signals Allies as a supported archetype in The Last Airbender. While I'm skeptical Allies will be a competitive deck, this is a two-drop mana creature with great stats that doesn't need other Allies. If there are other Allies that are also cards that can stand on their own, then perhaps there can be a deck with a small package of Allies rather than going all-in on the archetype. There does appear to be an abundance of Allies to choose from, which adds an upside to this little Guide. While I typically shy away from mana creatures that cost two mana, this one has the stats and upside to potentially see some Standard play, especially if we see more Allies and ways to sink mana that make for a reasonable game plan. Wan Shi Tong, Librarian Wan Shi Tong, Librarian is Hydroid Krasis with a twist, which was one of the most impactful cards in Standard. Krasis did a few important things that Wan Shi Tong is unable to do. It had a cast trigger that enabled it to play well against counterspells, putting you up cards even if you lost that exchange. Krasis gained life, and while it was often only a few life, chaining one into another would often lead to spots where you could stabilize at a healthy life total. Lastly, Hydroid Krasis was not a Legend, which is only a small downside, but nonetheless still a limitation. Wan Shi Tong may not do all of those things exactly, but it plays well against counters because it has flash, allowing you to sneak it into play whenever the opponent is tapped out. While Wan Shi Tong doesn't gain life, it has vigilance, allowing you to threaten your opponents' life total while defending your own. One massive upside to Wan Shi Tong, in comparison to Hydroid Krasis, is how much better it is to play alongside counterspells. Krasis forced you to commit your mana at sorcery speed and made it difficult to leave up a card like Negate. Flash goes a long way here, and may be the reason this card sees play in Standard. Standard has been in a place where big splashy plays like this rarely see play, but Wan Shi Tong might be good enough to break that mold because it doesn't force you to commit to spending mana on your own turn, allowing you to play a more reactive game plan and refilling your hand when the coast is clear. Mai, Sconful Striker I've seen a little buzz with Mai, Scornful Striker. It's reminiscent of Eidolon of the Great Revel, an all-format all-star for burn decks. Mai fits into that category, but it's meaningfully worse. Mai is a Legend, which prevents you from doubling up on the effect, and can be problematic if your plan is to overload your opponent and soft lock them out of the game. Most importantly, Eidolon had other burn spells to supplement its effect. Black does not have access to that much burn, meaning if your opponent can stabilize, then you won't necessarily have the reach to close the game out. Red decks could always hope to draw a Boros Charm or Lightning Strike to finish the game off, but Mai won't have that support to help in close games. Mai is a playable card, but it scales with how many non-creature spells your opponents plan to cast. If the format is dominated by creature decks, we won't see much of Mai. If people are trying to chain together cards like Accumulate Wisdom, then Mai seems more appealing. This is a solid card that will see play, potentially even in Eternal formats. There are a lot of cards to go over, so I will keep looking at cards that jump out at me until the set's release. I went over some of the simpler ones this week. Next week, I'll look into the wordier cards, of which there are quite a few. The set looks like what I'd expect from Constructed's lens, but it looks grindy and exciting for Limited. I'm hoping we get a lot of exciting tournaments to play, both online and offline, with this release, especially Arena Directs and Opens, so I can sink my teeth into the format. That was something that I missed with Spider-Man and that ruined the set's hype for many Arena players. See you next week.

It's no secret that my favorite way to play Magic has always been Limited. Cube, specifically powered Cube, mixes the best of both worlds — Limited Magic, but the goal is to draft a Constructed-power level deck. I haven't played a ton of the Cube yet since it's only been out a few days as of writing. I'm enjoying it more than I did the MTGO Cube because it feels more authentic. It's wild to think, but MTGO has included so many supplementary product cards that it no longer feels like a vintage Cube. Instead, it feels like a powered Cube with the most broken threats from Commander decks and other products not legal in the formats I play. While there's some of that in the Arena Power Cube, it's minimal, and I don't feel bogged down having to read three or four cards per pack. While many of us are familiar with Power Cube, a younger generation is just now learning it because it's finally available on the modern client. This will mean a lot of leaky drafts where you see many cards later than you should, and decks in the mythic ranks will be better on average than you may see on MTGO, which has a more experienced and smaller player base. You can take advantage of this by expecting new players to take archetypes you want to avoid. New players aren't going to draft Underworld Breach Storm, for instance. They will gravitate towards more permanent-based decks. I'll likely create a lot of Cube content, as we have access to the Power Cube. However, first and foremost, let me explain my current philosophy and offer advice on how to approach the Cube. The number one goal with Cube, especially currently, is to maximize fun. I am willing to disregard my win rate to increase my enjoyment. I get my dopamine from putting together nonsense combo decks and stumbling into something unique. Currently, Cube is not a highly competitive format, so it's not worth increasing my win rate by a small margin, such as from 62 to 64%. Admittedly, drafting in this manner will lead to some bad habits that could carry over if and when Cube becomes a more competitive endeavor. I hope we get to see it for some Arena Opens or maybe even Arena directs. My second goal is, of course, winning. I want to win but not by drafting white or red aggro decks. I enjoy playing combo and would like to give myself an opportunity to play all the power, so I'm almost always going to draft blue. One of these days I plan to write about a list of under- and overvalued cards in Cube, but with such a new player base, this is the time to actually embrace those cards. For example, Tolarian Academy is taken too aggressively on MTGO, likely because of LSV's content and his enthusiasm for the card. It's not like the card is bad. Its ceiling is ridiculously high. However, it's hard to get a deck together with it, especially when a lot of players are taking artifact mana and hoping to open it, or have it passed to them in later packs. There are dozens of examples of these cards popping in very good decks where their absence leads to a complete train wreck. If your goal is to have fun first, and you can withstand a few bad draft decks before a great deck, then by all means, slam Academy first pick. I would. If your goal is to win and mitigate expenditures, then you're better off taking Ragavan or Ocelot Pride, which have lower ceilings but higher floors. As far as color preference, I don't draft white or green cards early. Those colors don't facilitate the degenerate combo decks very well. I won't think twice about taking a card like Lion's Eye Diamond over Swords to Plowshares. Most people, however, just take Swords if they want to win. My general rule is don't play green creatures. Uro and other value cards like that are different, but I never want to have enough green in my deck to be able to cast a turn-one Birds of Paradise. Sometimes I will, but I'm usually fighting against it with my picks, and I only play that much green when I'm pushed into a corner. Green-ramp creatures' game plan is too fragile in 2025 Magic, and there's enough artifact mana that ramping, the one thing green is good at, is available to every color combo. Green is basically obsolete because the artifact mana is available to all colors, inherently more powerful because it's harder to interact with, and generally more efficient. If you're new to the Cube, I suggest starting out by drafting some easier-to-navigate decks like White Aggro, specifically Boros Aggro is strong and easy to draft and play. UB Reanimator is simple to play, deep, and fairly powerful, but it's not as good as it once was because there are so many ways to go over the top. I'd avoid drafting decks like Storm, as they can be tough to navigate and draft and, due to the Arena software's smaller timing windows, difficult to pilot. On MTGO, we play a 4-5 minute kill turn. On Arena, you must move quickly to avoid timing out. It has taken me some time to adjust. Every time I cast a cantrip or a draw spell and information changes, you have to recalibrate when playing a combo turn, and it's hard to adjust with the rope running. Another word of advice to less-experienced Cube drafters, especially those with a Limited background, is that mulligan decisions are more important, and the games themselves are extremely front-loaded. Your opening hand must either apply pressure, interact, or advance a game plan in a meaningful way. It's going to cost you if you're keeping a hand because it's a few lands and spells. In a format with Lotus and Moxen, you don't get much time to catch up. You need to make sure you're either developing your game plan or preventing your opponent from executing theirs. There's no middle ground. I'll be battling it out in Cube over the next few weeks, but we also have Avatar around the corner. This is an exciting time for Magic with a lot to look forward to. On top of that, I expect a Standard shakeup in the immediate future. When Final Fantasy was out, Magic's hype was extremely high, but an immediate whiplash occurred when Spider-Man hit the shelves. I'm hoping during the holiday season, we have more of the former and can sink our teeth into new formats, cards, and ways to play.

This past week, we received news from William Jensen, director of organized play, hall of famer, and a personal friend of mine, that we will have a new Pro Tour-like event, the Limited Championships, in 2027. As you can see in the picture above, there are a few ways to qualify via the PT, but most of the event's slots will be filled by the public. This is also a Worlds Qualifier, in that the T8 drafters will be sent directly to Worlds, which also semi-connects it to the PT. This is amazing news. Limited has been an underrepresented part of competitive Magic for years. A $500k prize pool is a solid investment and gives players who mostly play Limited, such as myself, a great event to look forward to. This is a 99% positive announcement. I should probably not even mention the negative reaction I had to it, as it was a minor detail that irked me upon first reading it, but I do have a critique. It annoys me that the HoF is invited. That's not to say that I want to exclude my HoF friends and the players I've always admired. I'm annoyed that as we keep adding more to OP, and they keep including HoFs, it feels like we should also include high-level, HoF-worthy players who aren't in the HoF. For example, Javier Dominguez is an all-time top 5 player and has far surpassed the threshold of what it means to be a Hall of Famer. If players like him can't get in, it feels like these players are getting snubbed. For instance, I'm 100% certain that if Depraz wanted to Q for this event, and he likely will, he would Q. But I don't think he should have to if this is the only event he wants to play in the year. There's probably no active player I'd rather watch draft than Depraz, and Depraz would be a first-ballot HoFer if it still existed. I hope that the continued support of the Hall of Fame benefits means a return of the Hall of Fame in some capacity. I know they've discussed it at some point and have never followed up on whether they're going to continue adding players to it or not. Regardless, this event looks interesting. Had it existed ten or twelve years ago, I might never have taken Magic as seriously because I would have focused solely on Limited and used this as my competitive outlet. Now that I'm older with a family, I can't travel one or two times a month for Spotlights and RCs. As such, this is a great event to focus on, especially for someone who loves Limited and would love to play a Pro Level event about once a year. It would be nice if it were purely connected to the Pro Tour, but we'll have to see how that develops. Regardless, it's a brilliant addition. Big props to William Jensen because I'm confident this would never have happened without his leadership. Billy has always been a Limited lover first and foremost since I met him over 25 years ago. The $500k prize pool will attract many Limited-only players and encourage some of them to return to Constructed if they qualify and convert the Limited Championships into a World Champs slot. I'm waiting to see how the finer details shape up, but I will try and qualify via Arena at least. I'm also likely to pop my head out for some paper Magic from time to time. I even got a private message from a close personal friend who recently retired, Alexander Hayne, who wants to play in this event. As a content creator, this is a breath of fresh air. There's something to aim my content at and prepare people for, which I absolutely love. My engagement with Magic fluctuates depending on the end goal. It can be as simple as playing 100s of Final Fantasy drafts to prepare for a week of winning Collector Booster boxes, of which I converted just under 50% of my runs. If I play half as much, I probably convert half as much. If I'm going to invest my time, there needs to be a carrot to chase, or otherwise, my time would be better spent elsewhere. With this event, people will try to get better leading up to the event. I'm looking forward to trying to qualify and also helping my buddies, and of course, my readers and Twitch viewers, to qualify. I am worried about the event's coverage. I was underwhelmed with the slides and content they presented mid-draft at the last few PTs, as it appeared that slides like "cards they'd love to open" were a compilation of the highest win-rate cards in their colors, without including any contextual analysis about their deck. They often had cards I wouldn't put into the deck that I was drafting, or I wouldn't be happy if I did. Ideally, the way I'd handle that kind of slide, since they don't broadcast in real-time, is to have someone with a lot of experience sit down with a slide of the cards drafted and ask them which cards of each rarity they'd most want to open with their current pool. For example, if someone like TheHamTV is present, or any familiar face that people trust and who has had a lot of repetitions and success in the format, then that person should provide contextual analysis. This could be on or off air and would add more flavor and expertise to the segment. Right now, they cater the Pro Level Limited to players who rarely play Limited, which will not be the audience for an all-Limited event. I hope they find innovative ways to provide more detailed coverage that's focused on specifics rather than broad format information. Between this Limited Championship and a Pro Tour with a draft top 8, I can't wait to see how this shapes the Limited community. We have everything to look forward to, and I hope there's even more to come. The next step for WotC is to bring back the Hall of Fame, and all will (almost) be right in the world.

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Other prizing may be awarded based on attendance. $45 entry fee, 16 player cap Download MORE INFO SHOP Nov 16 6 PM MTG: Avatar The Last Airbender 2HG Prerelease Sunday Excited for Avatar? The best way to experience the latest set is to do a prerelease! Joining gets you a prerelease kit of 6 packs and a random promo to build with. For 2-Headed Giant, both you and a teammate will combine your kits to make two 40-card decks that you'll play with simultaneously against another team. You'll play three rounds, and for each round you win, you and your teammate earn 2 packs apiece. $45 entry fee per player, team and solo entries accepted, 1pm start time - Be sure to register early to guarantee a spot! Download MORE INFO SHOP Nov 20 11 PM Lorcana: Whispers in the Well Draft Thursday Join us for a draft of Lorcana's latest set! 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