Today was the first day that Murders at Karlov Manor was available on online platforms. I was fortunate to be invited to the Alphafrog Invitational sponsored by Daybreak Games on MTGO and spent the day drafting to prepare. This was as stacked a draft pod as you could get with players like Reid Duke, Nathan Steuer, and Karl Saraap. Of all these high-profile players, I was chosen as the featured drafter. You can go find my draft on YouTube or the MTGO Twitch channel if you're interested in seeing the draft from my perspective and understanding my approach to this format in its infancy. Here is my deck's final screenshot before I was whisked away. My thoughts on the format are centered on it being hard to block, but not overly fast due to creature sizing. Because of the disguise mechanic, creatures in the early game are not that big and you can trade early or take a more aggressive approach. Blocking can be punishing, as many combat tricks have investigate tacked on, so every time you lose a creature in combat in that fashion, you're down material in the long run since they get to crack their clue later on. This means I want to hit the ground running, and I highly value two-drops and any good spell that's two or less mana. In Limited, you want to plan out your turn, and your next turn if possible, based on spending mana efficiently. In this format, you're incentivized to figure out how the game is going to go for more than just two turns; you want to look at the next few to plan how to spend the maximum amount of mana and keep the tempo positive over several turns. Between efficient tricks, clue tokens, and morph, there are many ways each turn to dump mana. This often means being patient with disguise creatures and not flipping them until you're out of ways to press the board. White is currently my favorite color, but I don't think it's much better than anything else. I also like red because of cards like Shock and Galvanize. Instant-speed interaction is strong because you can get a ton of tempo when you interact with a creature that loses its ward after it becomes undisguised. White has a nice curve of creatures at common and some synergies with Detectives. Thinking Cap will likely be undervalued early in the format and end up being a high pick, much like Pirate's Cutlass from the original Ixalan. There are a lot of strong rares. The format is bomb heavy, so, staying low to the ground and getting underneath players with stronger cards is the best approach if you're not opening a ton of bombs. Three-mana cards are worse than they look because of disguise. You get glutted at three mana, so you need a good reason to take a three-mana card over a cheaper one. Value over the replacement level is not high enough on a card like Inside Source. In general. three-mana 2/2s that bring a 1/1 body along with them are always strong. While Inside Source is quite good, I like to take a solid two-drop like Marketwatch Phantom or even Novice Inspector over it because good three-drops are more accessible. The new Play Boosters setup feels more impactful than I anticipated. While you don't get two rares every pack, some strange circumstances pop up that are nearly impossible to read. If you were passed a pack with two strong rares in a format like March of the Machines, you could easily identify that a foil rare was taken if a common is missing. With play boosters, there can be a bunch of normal rares so it's hard to narrow down what the opponent may have taken since it could be anything from a List card to a better rare of the same color they passed. My knee-jerk reaction to this set was I wouldn't like it much and that it's too tempo-heavy, too focused on combat, and your drafting goals were simplified to curve out with creatures and make sure you can continue to attack. Nathan beat that out of me in the finals, as he just played rare after rare in his five-color green deck. The fixing, card quality, and cheap removal are there to go deep if you want. In the games I lost to Nathan, it was as simple as not having a two-drop on two. I may be able to leverage my advantage if I did, and I even considered casting one of my premium disguise creatures as a generic 2/1 on turn two because I knew how important that would be. Out Cold has my vote for the current most underdrafted common. Blinding Beam was considered one of, if not, the best commons in a strong Limited format many years ago. That effect's biggest downside is usually losing a card when it doesn't work, so using it defensively rather than proactively means you're likely to get buried down the road. With Out Cold, you get to make a clue and use it defensively to stabilize or as an up-tempo spell to push your onboard advantage. I lost the finals with my strong UW deck in a close three-game set, but I like that I went into the draft with a plan and was able to execute it against the best the world has to offer. I recommend this set for Limited currently, which is an endorsement I didn't think I'd make, but it's definitely going to be fun for at least a little while.

I found a few cards in this set to look at and wrap up this investigation. This set is especially exciting given we're also going back to the Pro Tours after what feels like an eternity, and this will be the first set when we return. Intrude the Mind This is an interesting mythic rare that plays like a Fact or Fiction variant. This will often be an instant-speed 3/3 flier that draws two cards for five mana. That's a pretty pushed rate, but it still feels slow for present-day Standard where we have incredibly powerful three-drops. Intrude the Mind will play well in flash-style controlling decks, so it has an opportunity to fill a role. However, it's too expensive for most formats and potentially too slow in Standard. This leaves it as a bomb for Limited, which is always a big miss. You can do some cool things with this card, such as casting it in combat and making piles of 5/0 or 4/1 to ambush an important creature or draw a bunch of cards. This card may have enough juice if the Standard format is slow and grindy. I could even see this card in small numbers in a Pioneer Creativity deck, but it's likely just worse than Shark Typhoon. Reenact the Crime Reenact the Crime looks powerful at a glance, but the more you think about it, the less exciting it feels. In a dream scenario, we're doing something like discarding something expensive and powerful like an Ulamog, Emrakul, or in Standard an Atraxa will have to do, and then Reenacting our desired payoff. As you set this up by digging for pieces with looting effects you have to accomplish the entire combo in one turn. Then, you are just reanimating a giant creature or spell, so it's a combination of a bad Mizzix's Mastery or Zombify. The upside is you are casting the copy, and you will get on-cast effects, but the setup seems too ambitious when there are easier ways in eternal formats, like Through the Breach, to put a creature in play. In Standard formats, we don't get much better than a reanimation of an Atraxa, but there are more straightforward ways to accomplish this action. After all these hoops, the card is weak to graveyard hate, which is abundant these days. While the card looks powerful and right up my alley, it seems too much to ask to have to target a card that went to the graveyard in the same turn along with the casting cost of Cryptic Command. Krenko's Buzzcrusher Krenko's Buzzcrusher slightly resembles Town-Razer Tyrant, one of the more powerful cards from the original Alchemy sets. Krenko's Buzzcrusher is templated in a weird way where it doesn't target lands, which gets around the hexproof ability of Lotus Field in Pioneer. However, one big issue is that this is a four-mana card, and if you try to cast this on turn four against Lotus Field on the draw, you are still potentially already dead. While this card is playable in other match-ups, it's not very good. I'd rather have Damping Sphere in basically every deck. I think if they wanted to make a card like this to specifically handle Lotus Field, a narrow and low-percent deck, they should have made a three-mana version that could attack the deck on the play and draw. Case of the Ransacked Lab I wanted to highlight the new card type Case. None of them thus far look great, but this one is interesting and potentially powerful. A common play pattern with this would be either slamming it on turn three, untapping and casting a bunch of cantrips to solve the case, and then getting a huge boost of card advantage. Cards with flashback or jump-start, like Radical Idea and Think Twice, would make this card trivial to flip, but the problem is a deck focusing on this card would be filled with air. Unless you want to play this card in a deck like Phoenix in Pioneer or a Storm deck in Modern, it wouldn't have a great home, as you'd fall too far behind on tempo in most cases. On top of that, cards like Boseiju and Otawara exist, which would embarrass the effort put into solving this. The card type is certainly interesting, but I'm not in love with any of the Cases at first glance. Archdruid's Charm Archdruid's Charm has potential to see play alongside Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in a dedicated lands deck potentially with Field of the Dead, Valakut, or the likes. It's hard to cast, clunky, and most modes are not efficient enough for Modern-day MTG. We're no longer in a world where you get too many bonus points for versatility. You need your cards to be consistently great. Outside of an instant-speed Rampant Growth with no Basic restriction, I'm not excited to put this card in my stompy Mono-Green deck or anything. The search-a-land mode is strong if what you want to do is supported in a Mono-Green deck. Llanowar Elves into turn two cast this for Nykthos, turn three cast a Cavalier of the Thorns is a thing you can do, but Nykthos is more powerful when you're playing permanents every turn and not using a crucial turn to spend mana to put it into play. My hunch is this will see some play in some deck at some point, and its existence is something to keep in mind. It's not an every-Mono-Green-deck card like Archmage's Charm, which was completely busted if you could cast it easily. Fugitive Codebreaker This is a solid-looking card. Fugitive Codebreaker reminds me a lot of Den Protector as a morph with a value mechanic. The difference is that Fugitive Codebreaker requires you to consider it more when building your deck, but it's also a much better two-drop. As a two-drop in any deck filled with spells, whether that be a dedicated Izzet Prowess-style deck or a Mono-Red-Burn deck, it can threaten to deal tons of damage when unanswered. As the game develops, you can then start chaining them while you empty your hand. A perfect midgame scenario is you have four to five lands, five spells in your graveyard, and you can morph this for three, flip it in the same turn to reload your hand, and still deal some damage. This will play through cards like Aether Gust and Disdainful Stroke, which is a nice added benefit. This card looks strong enough because it's serviceable at two mana, and it will often be your best draw in the midgame in a deck that wants this card. I hope I get to play a tier-one deck with this card in the near future. Long Goodbye Long Goodbye is a nice format staple for Standard. With the introduction of Disguise to MTG, we got a removal spell that can fight through Ward, which impacts disguised creatures and cards like Raffine. In many cases, this will be less efficient than Cut Down, but it will be more consistent in killing what you want and trading up on mana. It's a card we'll be seeing a good amount of in Standard and potentially eternal formats. While eternal format players tend to play cheaper creatures, Long Goodbye is not that efficient compared to more powerful removals like Fatal Push, but it also hits cards like Wrenn and Six. I suspect we'll see a lot of this card in the coming couple of years of Magic. Even if it's not super exciting, it's just a solid bread-and-butter Magic card. Ezrim, Agency Chief Ezrim looks incredible. A five-mana 5/5 flyer will often dominate the skies. The ability to gain hexproof with an activation means you need to kill this with the trigger on the stack if you're lucky, or often not at all. While this isn't as unbeatable as Dream Trawler since it can technically be raced, I'm excited to try this card in Standard in place of Ao because it will be more difficult to manage, still provides immediate value, and slides right into Esper decks with Raffine. This is a Baneslayer and Mulldrifter rolled into one. The more food you have to feed it, the better it becomes. While five mana cards have a high bar to clear, I think this gets through. Murders at Karlov Manner looks kind of exciting. At first, the power level looked tame, but I think it got itself up to being solid. There don't look to be any flashy cards like Fable of the Mirror Breaker that will definite formats for years to come, but there are a lot of interesting designs that could create new archetypes or potentially push A-tier decks into the S-tier. I'm already booked and have all accommodations set up for the 75k in Chicago at the Pro Tour. I'm excited to get back to playing paper Standard for the first time in years. I hope to see you there.

We now have more insight into what's going on with the Murders at Karlov Manor, including more previews and new game mechanics. Let's first look at the new mechanics. Disguise Disguise is a fresh new look at morph. Like morph, a disguised creature can be cast face down and then turned face up after paying the morph or disguise cost. The only difference between disguise and morph is that a disguised creature has ward 2. This is a cool but uninspired spin on morph. It will also lead to obnoxious situations in paper Magic where people forget it has ward and judge calls about taking back a play are made. Collect evidence Collect evidence is a more inspired mechanic that feels similar to delve. If you want the additional benefit, you exile a casting cost worth of cards from your graveyard equal or greater to the number on the card as an additional cost. This is a cool mechanic that is a delve and delirium mix where getting cards into your graveyard provides value as games progress. I'm interested to see how this plays out in Limited and Constructed. Let's get into some previews. No More Lies No More Lies jumps out to many old-school gamers. Mana Leak was a controversial card in Standard sets, but since then Magic has come a long way. It's been time for a while to bring it back. No More Lies is more restrictive on where it can be played as a gold card, which will make it less ubiquitous across Standard and Pioneer. I could see this backfiring and being a bad thing. It will narrow where we can play such a strong card and what cards can be played with it, but I like this twist in a large Standard with a much longer rotation. This card is a surefire staple in both Pioneer and Standard. Massacre Girl, Known Killer While a cool callback to a sweet card and character, Massacre Girl, Known Killer has a big problem: Having the same casting cost as Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Massacre Girl, Known Killer wants you to get into combat and trade off creatures so that you draw cards via the wither mechanic, but that's not what competitive Constructed is about these days. I suspect this card will sit in trade binders and Limited decks. Krenko, Baron of Tin Street I haven't had enough time to process how far you can push this version of Krenko, but this card looks incredibly strong. A 3/3 haste for 3 is at rate for a playable creature if we get something extra, and this has a built-in lord effect and a way to generate creatures in true Krenko style. Krenko seems ripe for abuse in older formats that already play Goblins. While it will need a lot of support, it may have some legs in Standard as well. Krenko will play especially nice with clue, treasure, and food tokens. This card isn't busted since it needs help, but we'll likely see a lot of builds revolving around this card in eternal formats. You can probably already find something on my friend and teammate Jim Davis's stream. No Witnesses Wrath of God, Depopulate, or whatever you want to compare it to, will be just as good as those variants. There's not much to say about this one because it's mostly a carbon reprint of former versions with the flavor of the new set. It's a solid option in all formats that want this effect, but in modern-day Magic, we can't rely on it for too much since threats have become more powerful and diversified. Sharp-Eyed Rookie Sharp-Eyed Rookie takes evolve to the next level. This creature can grow as long as you continue to cast bigger and bigger creatures, and you get a card of value in the form of a clue with this card. Sharp-Eyed Rookie only needs to trigger twice for it to be incredible, and even once you can evaluate it as a two-mana, 3/3 vigilance that produces a clue. The card looks solid in curve-out green decks with high-creature density. We don't have many of those at the moment in Standard, but I could see a sequence of Sharp-Eyed Rookie, Glissa, and Sheoldred as a 2-3-4 punch that puts the screws to the opponent, as they're all must-kills. One aspect I like about Sharp-Eyed Rookie is that while it asks you to play directly into sweepers, it also gives you clue tokens to help replace the cards you lost, which will be important in tight, grindy games. Sharp-Eyed Rookie is a two-drop that will likely see play in the right home, but it's not a staple or a card you want to build around, as cracking clues isn't cheap. Aurelia's Vindicator This appears to be the first Constructed-focused disguise creature. It looks interesting and like a mash-up of both Exalted Angel and Angel of Serenity. Aurelia's Vindicator, even cast at four mana, gives you an evasive creature that can be tough to kill with ward 2 on the front side that also wins races on behalf of the lifelink. If disguised and flipped, Aurelia's Vindicator can sweep your opponent's board and provide a huge tempo boost and maybe pick up creatures from your graveyard so that you can potentially loop multiple copies, much like we used to do with Angel of Serenity. The way Aurelia's Vindicator reads, I believe we can exile creatures permanently by making it leave play before the resolution of its trigger, potentially with a bounce spell or flicker effect. Aurelia Vindicator's 2 toughness is a huge strike against, as the card might have some legs in Standard otherwise. It trades with creatures like Faerie Mastermind and dies to Shock, which makes it less exciting. There's a world where this card sees some play since it can go over the top of any creature deck given enough mana. Sadly, I don't think we live in that world, and the real draw would be a large lifelink flier rather than a cool disguise card we want to play for its awesome ability. Maybe the full package has it end up somewhere in some numbers. Surveil Lands Last but not least for this week, we have Surveil Lands. These lands are all playable and direct callbacks to the Scry lands, though they're better for a few reasons. For one, by surveiling, you can add cards to your graveyard to be used in a myriad of ways. Another huge reason these are better is that they are fetchable. I'm curious to see what number of these we see played in Modern, but my guess is that every deck playing a lot of fetches will want a single copy to turn fetches into lands that can scry in grindier, longer games. You may even see these in a format like Legacy where you want to put a specific card in your graveyard. You can fetch an Undercity Sewers, put surveil on the stack, cast Brainstorm, and put an Atraxa into the graveyard to Animate Dead. These are going to see play, and while the full utility isn't as easily used in Standard or Pioneer, we will see them beyond those formats. We likely want to avoid playing them in Standard and Pioneer because we've seen in recent years how punishing it can be to play tapped lands off-curve. I will for sure pick up a set of these, and I'm excited to see how they play in Cube since they're fetchable and provide a unique way to put cards in the graveyard. So far the set looks mundane and nothing jumps out as a card I need to build around or that will affect the formats too much. No Lies Told is my current pick for the most exciting card, and while it's strong, I hope we see something more exciting next week.

It's a new year and MTG has a new set coming around the corner. I'm especially interested this time around because I've already booked Magicfest Chicago and registered for the Standard 75k. I'll start my testing process once we have a full idea of the set. Until then, I'll look at each card and think about and relearn the format. Each individual set could have a lot of impact on the format if they decide to turn the crank on the power level, but in general each Standard set will have less impact because of how large Standard is becoming with the new rotation cycle. Let's take a look at some cards that seem interesting thus far. Alquist Proft, Master Sleuth Alquist Proft, Master Sleuth is an interesting card. It has Rogue Refiner vibes, a three-power, three-mana creature that provides a Clue token that is comparable to "draw a card" when you factor in the use of an artifact token on top of the mana cost to get your card. Additionally, we get the potential in the late game to turn any Clue into a Sphinx's Revelation. This effect is huge in games where boards stall out, which isn't typical in Standard these days, but long, back-and-forth games can happen in grindy formats like Standard, especially postboard when people bring in appropriate interaction. There will be times you peel Alquist with 10 mana, which you can then tap out to make a 3/3 that also draws four cards, much like a Hydroid Krasis. This card will be excellent in those kinds of games, and vigilance allows you to set this up a little better while still pressuring life totals and planeswalkers, providing you with a 3/3 that can always block. This is the card I'm most excited about trying based on the previews. It may be too slow for current Standard, but I could see it being quite good given a deck that tries to develop a long game plan. Lightning Helix A beloved reprint, Lightning Helix is sure to see play in any deck that can cast it, but casting is going to be the issue. I see Lightning Helix as more of a defensive card right now. It's a removal spell with life gain that can help more controlling or slower decks, such as Domain, push into the late game where you're able to overpower your opponent. With the mana the way it is in Standard currently, it's a difficult card to cast in aggressive decks. We likely won't see it splashed in a deck like Mono Red. Helix is an appropriately powered card for Standard. While it's sure to see play, it's not good enough to wrap your deck around, as we have a huge Standard since sets keep being released. Helix will provide additional reach even in slower decks, so it's not strictly a removal spell because it can also help you close in a lot of situations. Lightning Helix is an excellent printing because it's an appropriate power level, will see some play, and some players may get excited enough about it to try Standard again after having not played in a while. I'm especially interested in trying Lightning Helix in a deck with Chandra, Hope's Beacon. It's a solid card and a great reprint. Rakdos, Patron of Chaos Rakdos, Patron of Chaos is certainly powerful, but six mana likely won't see play. For six mana, a card needs to provide immediate value. While Rakdos can do that, situations where it eats an instant-speed-removal spell and provides nothing will be devastating having spent six mana. Ideally, Rakdos comes into play, draws two cards, attacks the following turn, and draws two more. Basically, any six-mana card is going to run away with games untouched, so you want six-mana spells to provide immediate value all the time and not just when the opponent doesn't have it or when they're tapped out. We'll probably see some people slide a copy into various Rakdos decks as a top-end finisher, but I'm unlikely to put this card in my deck over something like Chandra Hope's Beacon. Novice Inspector I wish they had just reprinted Thraben Inspector because I don't want to see multiple copies of this effect in Cubes, and I know I will. I've never been a huge fan of Thraben Inspector, but it has its spots. I'm not expecting this card to age well in Standard, but it will see play, at least for a while. It's worth noting that having a newly named Thraben Inspector is a big addition for Boros Convoke in Pioneer, which I think is kind of cool. Does it make that deck significantly better? Not really, as it doesn't change how the deck plays functionally, but it does make it a bit more consistent. Deduce This is an interesting card for Pioneer Creativity decks. If you're looking to cast Creativity for X=1, then this card has a shot at seeing some real play. Deduce is not a card we'll see played for reasons outside of wanting to do something with that artifact token, but there are many places where it could be a role player. It's not the most exciting card, but it's interesting to try when you want a token. Because it has investigate, you can split the mana cost as its fail mode and enable artifact and token synergies without actually being an artifact itself. Gleaming Geardrake Last but not least is my favorite card I've seen thus far—Gleaming Geardrake. This is a bit of a sleeper pick from me, but Gleaming Geardrake provides value and puts two artifacts into play with one spell, which is an excellent follow-up to a card like Patchwork Automaton. The most obvious old-school synergy would be with Arcbound Ravager, killing at an incredibly fast rate. There's lot of area to explore with Gleaming Geardrake outside of old Modern decks that won't be good enough, like traditional Ensoul decks in Pioneer. Gleaming Geardrake is far from a slam dunk, but it's an all-around awesome design that is likely to find a home in at least some tier-2 decks. This card has a high ceiling with tons of artifact synergies, such as decks that make treasure, with Cat Oven, or anything else in this space that can produce lots of artifact tokens. This is my favorite design in the set thus far. It reminds me a bit of Bloodtithe Harvester as a two-drop that provides value and is a scary threat to boot. I don't see anything groundbreaking for Standard, or any format for that matter, so far. However, a set with investigate as a key mechanic should be a lot of fun, and I'm hoping they're saving the best previews for after winter break. Regardless, there are some interesting cards that I'm excited to try.

Every year, I write a retrospective about how my year went with MTG and look into the future to make personal goals for the upcoming year. Last year, I wanted to turn off the Spike in me to focus more on my relationship with MTG and approach to the learning process, as well as force myself to learn more at the cost of potentially winning games. This involved exploring decks, plays, ideas, and all that good stuff. While this year was the least amount of events I’ve played, and frankly the worst results I’ve had given so few opportunities, I’m happy with my current relationship with Magic in the game's current climate. We got the Pro Tour back in its new form this year. When we look back in the years to come, we’ll remember that as 2023's major feature. We'll also probably remember the historic runs of some players this season, such as Nathan Steuer’s incredible success only to lose the Player of the Year race to Simon Nielsen’s equally impressive run. Personally, my results were lackluster, but I only played two events—a Regional Championship where I lost some close matches on day two to be out of contention and the first Pro Tour of the season where I had some tough games and luck, but my team did amazing with a deck I championed in testing. I prepared well for the events and gave myself a great shot at success. Pioneer is just a tough format with lots of swings. Unfortunately, it was the focus of the tournaments I played and a few draw steps didn’t go my way. There's no doubt in my mind that I’d find success sooner than later given enough opportunities with the approach I took, and what's important to me right now is making sure I make the most of my opportunities. I’m proud that I worked on and tuned Creativity with my testing team, advocated for the deck, and saw my teammates Gab Nassif and Reid Duke use it to make the Top 8 with Reid winning the tournament. While the results weren’t my individual results, I consider this a personal success. Many people don’t see me as a Constructed player because I focus and talk more about Limited on my stream and X (formerly Twitter), but my teammates and testing partners can tell you I do a lot of work in Constructed when there are stakes. I consider this past year a success despite having nothing to personally show for it. As for my goals and relationship with MTG for next year, I’ve already booked my first trip and tournament of 2024. I'll be playing the Standard 75k at Pro Tour Chicago and trying to earn a slot in the Pro Tour. Personally, the Regional Championship system just isn’t for me. It’s hard to get away on weekends from the family to take shots in RCQs, and it's not as fun without my friends all there. My approach this year is to take it easy, go to events when I can, and when I do, prepare like it's a Pro Tour. Rather than force RCQs locally, if an event is convenient enough, like perhaps RC Montreal, I can try to LCQ into the main event. If not, I’ll hang out with my homie Alexander Hayne and enjoy the weekend. Other than that, the events I’m drawn to the most are similar to the old GP structure despite being so few and not having Pro Points involved to sustain. These events are held at Pro Tours, so I can see some overseas friends while I compete without the pressure of attending a tournament every weekend. It doesn’t get much better than that. For the upcoming event in Chicago, I think it will be easy to get an edge because most top players are focusing on Modern for the Regional Championship in Denver or Pioneer for the Pro Tour in Chicago. Standard is in a weird place with no huge tournaments coming up, just this new Grand Prix-style event, and it will be with new cards from a new set. That excites me as Standard could change a good bit with a new card pool and not many will have it in focus. I will be focused on it, and I hope to create some innovations that give me a deck edge. The event won’t have the strongest players in the world because they’ll all be playing in the Pro Tour, so I should have an experience and skill edge. I want to focus on the same goals this year as last year, which is to play what I want to, not what I need to, and continue to be comfortable not playing every Pro Tour, Worlds, or Regional Championship. I will not force myself to play the game I love or it quickly becomes a game I don’t. Also, I want to be prepared for the events I play like I was playing in the Pro Tour. I realized over the past few years that the part I enjoy the most with big Magic events is the problem-solving process leading up to any big event, not the events themselves and my results, and there’s no reason I can’t focus on less prestigious events in the same vein. If I treat the events the same and play enough of them, then over time I’ll get the results I want. While my past goal was to play everything, now I don’t want to feel bad playing an event that I'm only playing because it’ll be good for future Siggy. I want to enjoy the game, the process, and most importantly, the company of my friends. I had planned to stream a good amount the past two months, but LCI Limited came out. After enjoying the set for 10 or so drafts, I thought maybe I’d get into it, but then I felt like I didn’t want to play the format anymore. It was too similar to previous formats, and while the mechanics were different, they didn’t add much to the gameplay experience, so I followed my instinct and stopped. It meant I had nothing to stream, but I'd rather want to play than force it. I took my own advice and sat the rest of the Limited season out. I spent any time on Magic looking at various Constructed formats. As far as my stream is concerned, I want to stream more this year and maybe branch out into playing video games if I don't have Magic I want to stream. While my relationship with OP will wax and wane over the years, so will my friends' relationships with the game. We can always keep each other up to date by discussing the game we love, and that's frankly just amazing. My ultimate goal in 2024 is to play another Pro Tour. If not, I'll at least give myself the best chance and treat every tournament I play seriously but let the chips fall where they may. After the New Year, I want to continue streaming the formats I enjoy, and I may branch out into streaming other games, but there's not yet a fixed schedule. Happy holidays, and happy New Year everyone!

This past weekend we witnessed what Pioneer's new world looks like on one of the biggest stages, the U.S. Regional Championship, which featured around 1,300 players. Teferi enjoyers may rejoice since world-class player Daniel Weiser used Azorious Control to take down the tournament, but it was not the deck of the tournament. Amalia Combo is the new kid on the block, and from what I saw, it looks like it's here to stay a while. My initial thoughts on decks like this are that they always start strong and end up falling off when people learn and prepare for play patterns. By "decks like this" I mean the Birthing Pod, Collected Company, or Chord of Calling creature combo decks. I still believe that, but this deck is fast and resilient enough to remain a player in Pioneer for the foreseeable future. The combo of Amalia and Wildgrowth Walker and starting the explore chain means you're off to the races as early as turn three. Dina provides a way to win without combat, which is a nice additional angle. I think we'll begin to see more counterplay to this deck, and while this deck performed well at the Regional Championship, it'll soon be a poor choice as we see more Azorious Control, a natural predator, and more copies of cards like Hallowed Moonlight and maybe even the scarier Containment Priest. Amalia probably has another week or two of success before the metagame shifts completely, but every deck builder right now is looking for plans to improve against Amalia. In general, Amalia has the characteristics of a format-defining deck, and like Mono Green, the format will adapt around it with players choosing decks that fight it well, rather than just changing a few sideboard cards. Pioneer will look different when all is said and done. All eyes are on Amalia, and in a format as large and powerful as Pioneer, it doesn't take much to push back against a deck as powerful as Amalia. If your deck has a bad Amalia matchup then start looking for a new deck as things shake out. Amalia appears to be here for a long time, not a good time. Decks like traditional Rakdos Midrange have to adapt. In fact, how does Sheoldred the Apocalypse stack up against decks like Azorious Control and Phoenix? It's easily answered by Lightning Axe out of Phoenix and all of Azorious Control's removal. At four mana you better hope Amalia Combo isn't ready to set up the kill if you're tapping out and spending four mana. Against Amalia, I prefer the leaner versions featuring Smuggler's Copter that can fly over the ground clutter, provide a clock, and continue to provide card selection to make sure the combo is never fully assembled. That's exactly the effect Amalia will have on the format, which is similar to Splinter Twin in Modern years ago. When tapping out for a sorcery-speed permanent, you better be sure you have your bases covered. Amalia will force Pioneer to be a leaner, more reactive format because of its speed, consistency, and ability to punish. Amalia is the fastest goldfish available, and you have to give it respect. With Return to the Ranks a draw step away, you need to make sure your reactive spells are ready to go and close the door on Amalia quickly or be able to interact with Rally on the stack. You can always attack their graveyard, but dedicated graveyard hate like Leyline of the Void is a horrible approach since you're hoping for things to line up just right rather than proactively shutting off Return the Ranks. It's better to have some incidental graveyard interaction like Graveyard Tresspasser, Containtment Preist, or Scavenging Ooze that can provide a clock while weakening Return to the Ranks off the top. We see decks like Phoenix and Azorious Control winning longer games against Amalia. Despite Phoenix being a poor matchup, it can play the game by negating the Collected Company or Return to the Ranks and putting pressure with a good Phoenix turn. Azorious Control can continuously answer the threats and eventually flood out the Amalia combo. I was impressed by Voice of Resurgence, and if I were to play an event with the deck right now, there's no way I'd leave home without a couple of copies in my sideboard to play a fairer game against these blue reactive decks. From Amalia's side, I'd look for more ways to win fair games while punishing opponents when they tap out. Voice of Resurgence seems to fit the bill. While I haven't found any official metagame data yet, I suspect Amalia will push slower, linear decks like Lotus Field to 1-2% of the metagame deck. Amalia is a faster, linear combo deck that is more reliable and easier to play. However, if the reaction to Amalia is too strong, there will be some weeks when Lotus Field is exactly where you want to be. If Amalia gets pushed back, the types of interaction you want against Amalia are different than what is required for Lotus Field, so if Lotus Field can find some spots where Amalia is only 5% of the field, it will have a good day with less-prepared versions of Rakdos, Phoenix, and Azorious Control. While it's too early to see how the metagame will shift, I suspect we're soon going to see more churn with so many variables in the past few weeks, including the addition of Smuggler's Copter, a new tier-one deck that's actually good (sorry Convoke fans), and the oppressive Mono G menace all but removed from the format. If I were playing a Pioneer tournament today, I would copy Daniel Weiser's winning Azorious Control deck. I have no faith anything else is up to the task of beating down Amalia, and while Daniel won the event, all eyes are on Amalia right now. Amalia will be heavily targeted and heavily played in the immediate future, and that's a good spot for Azorious.

I'm writing this just before the release of Khans of Tarkir Limited on MTG Arena. Khans is a beloved Limited format that is well-balanced and has a lot of replayability. Most importantly, it's the format of the December 16th Arena Open. Khans of Tarkir holds a special place in my heart, as it was my first Pro Tour top eight, and I ran off a 5-1 record in the Limited portion. Khans is an excellent competitive format, and it's also a good time. I'll run down some of the set basics and discuss strategies that worked well for me. Morphs won't trick you! Let's get to the basics first. Morph is a key mechanic, so the creature sizing might be smaller than you're seeing these days, which also leads to slower games. In the original morph sets, there were often ways to get your opponent with morphs. The classic is a Battering Craghorn or Skirk Commando conundrum that existed during Onslaught, the original morph set, and doesn't exist in Khans. Creatures only size up for five mana or more, so on turn three you can never lose a combat blocking their morph with your morph, and you should usually take the trade if you're on the draw because they're going to get to five mana first. Since they're incentivized to block, you should play your worse morph more often on turn three to attack their morph if you're not going to be playing an actual four-drop. Keep in mind you're always safe to block until they have five mana. They can have a combat trick, but that situation would happen sooner rather than later. Stay as close to two colors as possible While the set is designed around three-color cards and such, you still want to have two main colors and splash a third or even fourth. It's important to make sure your main two colors are consistent and pick up lands when you can to enable splashes. A lot of the format's most powerful cards are gold, so you want to slide them into your deck, but you don't want to cast three different colors of cards regularly. While morph allows you to make plays even if you're missing a mana color, it's still important you don't fall too far behind, especially in a Bo1 setting where a lot of this format will be played. Ideally, your mana base has at least eight sources of your two main colors and about four sources of any light splashes of up to three or so cards. If you have more than that, try to get more lands and fixing to allow you to more consistently cast your off-color spells. You can still be aggressive! Aggro decks are still viable and some of the format's best decks. While I often tried to have a slower, more controlling approach in the format, the meta-strategy created during the Khans Pro Tour by the Cabin Crew, now known as the Czech House, forced a Simic Aggro deck that was streamlined to two colors as much as possible and occasionally had light splashes. Two-drops like Smoke Teller, Highland Game, and Wetland Sambar that curve into heavy hitters such as Alpine Grizzly appear weak on the surface. However, when backed up with tempo-pushing spells like Force Away, Crippling Chill, and Savage Punch, they can punish slower or less consistent four- and five-color decks effectively. With BO1 hand smoothing in the mix, I can only imagine this archetype is strong. I remember thinking the strongest archetype going into the Pro Tour was Mardu-based token decks. Trumpet Blast and Rush of Battle were excellent ways to close a game. Mardu Hordechief and Ponyback Brigade are the premier commons for this archetype and two of the format's best commons. These cards made it easy to push through for enough damage while opponents were stuck on one play per turn, which was common given the format's focus on morph. Mardu Hordechief was the format's best common and a good signal that white is open if you're seeing them pick three or later. Play an extra land! There's not too much to add to this, but getting to five mana with morphs was pivotal. Whatever number of lands you're used to playing, add at least one. It will help you cast spells by adding a colored source and help make sure you hit that key five lands. There's a decent amount of card draw with cards like Treasure Cruise and Bitter Revelation at common, so flooding out isn't that worrisome. You can often spend your mana as long as you have it, so make sure you do! Five-color decks work, but only if lands aren't contested Five-color decks were my bread and butter, and I like more slow and controlling decks. When people are focused on smooth curves and sticking to two colors, you can often get lands later and get good-enough mana to play a bunch of colors. You still want to stick to a main color or two, but don't be afraid to branch out if the lands are coming. Playing five colors means you need more total picks for your deck to come together. You have to be getting lands later at some point in the draft or your mana and card quality will likely be too low. I like my five-color decks to be Sultai- or Abzan-focused and splash in other colors. Black and green have cheap effective blocks to slow the game down with cards like Disowned Ancestor and Archer's Parapet. I only drafted this style of deck when card quality was high. I never went into a draft anticipating getting a high-enough quality of cards to end up here, but it does happen at a high-enough frequency that you want this in your range. Trail of Mystery was a bomb in the format, and that's a good starting place for five colors if you happen to pick it up. Diminishing returns on delve Delve is a mechanic that, as we know from Constructed, has diminishing returns. The more delve spells you have, the worse they are collectively. Your first Treasure Cruise is more valuable than your second. Keep this in mind when evaluating cards. There are premium delve spells, such as Dead Drop and Murderous Cut, but make sure you don't overdo it on delve when you take these early. A card like Shambling Attendants is excellent if you don't get any delve spells. It's much worse when you have more. This will wrap up some of the quick tips for Khans. The set is a lot of fun and will be slower than you're used to if you started playing after this set's release. I'd get some good practice in before the Open and start studying the morphs and combat tricks because there are a lot of situations where you can use reasonable format knowledge to sniff out exactly what your opponent is trying to accomplish. Good luck and have fun!

We just got the new banned and restricted announcement, and as Wizards promised, there are going to be changes. In Pioneer we lost Karn, the Great Creator and Geological Appraiser, but we gained the beloved and spicy Smuggler's Copter. In Modern, we saw bans with Fury and Up the Beanstalk. While I'm not an avid Modern player, these are solid bans and will put the format in flux, but it remains to be seen if we see a lot of new decks or decks that were pushed out by Fury come back to light. In theory, Fury's absence will make room for more small-creature decks, but Orcish Bowmaster is still a heavily played, incredibly strong card, and the core of Grief Scam is still available. I'm curious to see if we see any more scamming or, since the second-best target is missing, the archetype just ceases to exist. I've played more Pioneer in the last year or so than I've ever played of any Constructed format, and it was stale. A lot of that was pressure from Mono-Green Devotion pushing out decks. Karn, a completely unpleasant card to play against for almost any deck, is a great ban for the format. It will give artifact-based strategies more room to breathe and unlocks our new toy, Smuggler's Copter. Geological Appraiser was too explosive for the format, and while the deck hadn't been dominating, it is an unpleasant experience to die on turn three. It's also worth noting that the design space of split cards and cards that can cheat the discovery mechanic would be limited in the future in a way that's not fun if this card were to remain in the format. Weirdly, this turn-three kill is a play pattern that Greasefang established, so that philosophy is odd. However, I don't think Greasefang needs to be banned. Greasefang is a logical choice for a starting spot for our new shiny toy, Smuggler's Copter. Karn leaving the format is also great for Greasefang, and it might be time to sleeve up an Abzan deck again. Copter will not enable turn-three Greasefang wins, but it will contribute well to the fair plan. It's a must-answer type of threat that will leave room for Greasefang to survive and run away with the game. It's unclear if it's good enough, but it's a great starting point for Smuggler's Copter. Gruul Boats is another deck that people love for Copter. It makes sense, as the deck is a vehicles deck by nature that plays mana elves that can efficiently use the Copter and would help the deck from flooding out. While it's likely a solid inclusion to the deck, the scariest card in the deck was Reckless Stormseeker early, and a curve of Copter into Stormseeker isn't as scary as another two-drop that can pressure my life total. I think it's going to do enough, and because Copter is sweeper protection, it likely finds a home in any aggressive creature deck. Boros Convoke is the one deck that might not utilize it, as it's off-plan since it can't convoke. Even then, it could do a lot of work against wipes as a sideboard card. I don't know if that's worth the space, but it's certainly a possibility. Copter may rejuvenate some off-meta decks like Mono B Aggro. Mono B Aggro is a major reason Copter ended up getting banned. That deck was popular in Pioneer's infancy and fell off fast as more powerful cards were printed. Mono B has some soft discard synergies with Copter with its various recurring 2/1 one-drops like Bloodsoaked Champion. It gets to play fistfuls of hand disruption in Duress and Thoughtseize, and it has access to Liliana of the Veil as a sideboard plan against grindier decks. Mono-White Humans is another option for Smuggler's Copter. While it's not a human and poorly interacts with Thalia, it's a deck that doesn't have haste creatures, so it will always be able to attack because your plan with that deck is to continuously apply pressure. In the short term, I'd place it here to start and play some leagues with it even in the humans form of the deck. We could move away from the humans plan, but I suspect that will make the deck worse. Rakdos Sacrifice is another meta deck I'd like to try Copter in, and my prediction is that this is the biggest winner of this announcement. It can incorporate Copter by using cats and such to crew it and discard cats. It will also get to loot away its cards like Fatal Push, Claim the Firstborn, and anything that's off in game one, which was a big problem for the deck. I'd likely move away from cards like Deadly Dispute to make room, but that remains to be seen. Kroxa gets a huge boost here from Copter. You can discard it to get value later and play it to crew the Copter to find more gas in certain game states. Copter won't even affect the ability to play Jegantha, which is another big win. If I were going to play a Pioneer tournament today, my current recommendation for the upcoming regional championships would be Rakdos Sacrifice in a landslide. The deck has always been an overperformer. Mono G was one of the reasons I didn't play the deck in tournaments before, but now Mono G is gone or severely nerfed, and tons of Copter decks are running around that Mayhem Devil will make short work of. I'm currently loving Rakdos Sacrifice's spot in the metagame, and it will be a popular choice in the short term until a real, new metagame shakes out. I'm worried about an uptick in control decks now that Mono G is gone, so I'd make sure I'm equipped well for that matchup. I haven't been as excited for Constructed Magic in years as I have been since the unbanning of Copter and the banning of Karn. This should breathe new life into Pioneer and make it less stale. It was as simple as swapping those cards' legality for me.

There’s a phrase that you’ve probably been hearing for quite some time, whether it be among casual play groups, game store regulars, or YouTube content creators: The fabled Rule Zero, a pre-game discussion that promotes a more friendly and even approach for players in both familiar and uncharted territories. It can mean the difference between a fun and balanced experience, or a miserable one. At the end of the day, we’re sitting down to slap some cardboard and have a good time; however, one person’s yum might be another’s yuck. So let’s talk about it! I’d like to regale you with an experience that happened to me in the past, one that serves as an inspiration for this writing. Let’s set the stage. It’s been a nice evening at my LGS, and I’ve already played a game of Commander with my two friends. We’re a turn or two into the next game when a younger-looking guy walks up to us and hastily asks if we’re looking for a fourth. We look around at each other and shrug “why not?” Seeing as this format was designed for four players and there’s currently only three, we shuffle our decks back together and begin a fresh game with our new acquaintance. He places his commander (The Ur Dragon) in its appropriate zone, and in my head, I can hear that song from Kill Bill. You know, the siren one? Yeah, you know it. It’s at this point that I realize we didn’t really have a discussion of our deck power or anything of the sort due to our rushed introductions. I breathe a sigh of dread, and we draw our opening hands. The rest of the game is a merciless beat down from this guy’s dragons, while any attempt the rest of us made to contain him is easily countered. There were moments where he wasn’t even paying attention to the game, but rather leaning back in his chair and fraternizing with nearby tables. Only when he would face forward and see new permanents on the board, would he then retroactively counter or destroy them. If this sounds like a “feel bad” situation, I can most certainly confirm that it was. After the game ended, the rest of us were so annoyed that we packed our decks up and called it a night, well before the shop closed. Unfortunately, the damage was done. “But Evan, isn’t there a way to avoid these kinds of situations to make sure that everyone is on a level playing field?” Well... Yeah. It’s the title of the article that you’re reading. In hindsight, if we had that pre-game discussion about what our decks do and how we intend to win, maybe we could have chosen other decks that were more fitting, or ask him to play a lower-power deck. However, we did not. And that, my friends, is what gathers us here today. As I mentioned in my opening, the Rule Zero discussion happens before you begin the game, maybe even before you've picked which deck to play. It’s a good habit to get into as you play in casual circles, but it really shines when you play with other people at your LGS that you may not be familiar with. As far as what you want to ask when you sit down, it’s pretty simple. Something as vague as “How does your deck try to win?” or “How fast can your deck win?” goes a lot farther than you’d think in establishing expectations. Questions like that will get your opponents thinking and everybody can gauge the kind of deck they can bring to make that game engaging. When I first learned of this principle, most people were still using a 1-10 scale to signify their deck's strength. It’s an easy idea to get behind but it suffers from the problem of being too streamlined to be helpful. If the average pre-constructed deck is a 5-6, and cEDH deck is a 10, then your deck has to exist somewhere in that gap. There are not enough degrees between those ends of the spectrum to really dive into the design of your deck. It’s mostly just based on your mana curve and how many tutors you run; which are not enough metrics to go on, personally. The running joke is that every deck is a 7; I'd go as far as to say that the number scale is a little outdated at this point. In addition to this conversation, you could also institute some of your own house rules to make the game a better experience for everyone involved. Keep in mind that these rules are not to tilt favor in any one player, but so that no one is truly left behind. After all, we’re all here to play some Magic, not just sit around and watch everyone else play. I do like to play Solitaire every now and then, but I don't bring other people into it. Here are some of my house rules you can use as inspiration for your own games: Free Mulligans: In Commander, the first mulligan is free, but every subsequent one will require you to put a card from your new hand on the bottom of your library. With my adjusted rule, If the first hand you draw is unplayable, reshuffle and draw again, and again, and again until you have something you can work with. However, we're working on an honor system here, so don’t get greedy with it. Oops, No Lands: Let’s say the game is a few turns in, you kept a risky hand or you’re running out of gas. My rule states that if you’ve missed two consecutive land drops, and you don't draw one on what would be your third, at the start of your turn, you're permitted to go grab a basic land from your library and put it on the battlefield tapped. Don’t scoop at instant speed: Pretty self-explanatory. In fact most players abide by this one. If you feel like you’re going to lose or you have to leave soon, just concede on your turn. Not only is it the courteous thing to do, but it's less likely to mess up anyone else’s board. There are lots of variables to take into consideration, and conceding during your turn makes for a clean break without causing any hard feelings. A topic that I briefly discussed in my last article was the concept of proxies; cards that are copies of existing cards with similar or alternate art that are included in your deck either because you only own one copy of the card, or the card is too expensive. The Rule Zero conversation is a great place to mention if you include proxies in your deck because not all players want to play against them. Me? I don’t really care. I encourage newer players to use them because a well-built deck is not always accomplished on a smaller budget, and I’d rather be out-played than out-bought. Besides, a player can build a deck that is 100% proxied and still lose every game, maybe because they just aren’t that good at building decks, or their deck isn't designed to be as strong as possible. Keep in mind that players can also use Rule Zero to try and use cards that are on the ban list, or alternative commanders. As long as everyone at the table agrees, everything is good. One last thing I’d like to bring up is the use of politics in Commander. This is a practice that is exclusive to multiplayer formats. It can mean the difference between getting knocked out of the game first, or being the last player standing. Let's set a scenario: all four players have established some pretty gnarly board states. So far, the game has been a tumultuous battle of wits, and you’re one direct attack away from losing the last of what little life total that you have left. You get the table’s attention and boldly proclaim: “If no one attacks me for two turns, everyone can keep their boards.” There’s a brief moment of silence, and looks are exchanged between all the players. Whether or not you were telling the truth, your words can carry weight. You could be bluffing, or asserting yourself in the situation. Most of the time, no one wants to poke the beehive and find out. Those two turns might be just enough time to draw into the card that you need to close out the game in your favor. However, it bears mentioning that if you were to go back on your truce, you will be dealing with the consequences. It usually won’t go in your favor, and it may follow you from this game to the next. One last note, (and I cannot stress this enough) COMPLAINING IS NOT POLITICS. If everyone is attacking you or countering your spells, it’s because you’re the biggest threat. Take it as a compliment. So, there you have it: An explanation of the ever-elusive Rule Zero. It’s a principle, a practice, and a way to ensure that every player is going to have a good time. Getting used to the idea and putting it to use can and will save you some frustrating experiences, or at least give you more knowledge on how to handle your next game. The more you play and have these discussions, the more you spread the word to other players so that we, as a community, are more vocal and understanding of each other.

I haven't been motivated to play a lot of LCI Limited this week. Initially, I was optimistic about the set, as it looked and felt solid. I may have felt it was deeper than it actually was due to a combination of day-one excitement and weaker Arena drafters. Regardless, this is the least enthusiastic about a Limited format I've been in years. I spent some time thinking about why, after about a dozen drafts or so, I don't want to open Arena or MTGO and fire up the queue. I asked around, publicly and privately, to see how others felt and found they were in the same boat and didn't enjoy the format that much. Quite simply, the set isn't a beloved Limited format. Fortunately, Booster Draft is like pizza, and even a bad format still has a shelf life, is worth playing, and will be enjoyable for some amount of time, but it'll be shorter for this set compared to past bangers. Here are the four major reasons why I haven't enjoyed the format. 1. Too Underpowered Magic has come a long way in 20 years. Look at the current iterations of Vintage Cube for example. It’s filled to the brim with cards printed in the past few years. Magic has become more powerful across the board, which makes the game more fun for Limited. Lost Caverns of Ixalan has its share of broken cards at rare and mythic, but the cards are underwhelming at uncommon and common. We don’t have Imodane’s Recruiter-type busted uncommons. A frequent criticism is that you open or get passed a pack and there’s not much that stands out in any color, just a bunch of flat power-level cards. This makes the drafting experience less enjoyable because you’re not thinking of your positioning or colors too much. If cards are flatly powered, it's more difficult to switch colors and much less correct to do so. In my limited experience with the set, I’ve picked a lane early because I opened a strong rare or one of the few strong uncommons and went with it. I’ve heard the criticism that the set is too bomb heavy. This would lead you to believe the set is more on the overpowered side, but the bombs stand out more because the set is so tame outside of those rares. 2. Weak Synergies and Payoffs Lost Caverns of Ixalan focuses on kindred creatures and other synergies to create cohesion. The format misses here. Kindred (formerly known as tribal) sets have always struggled in Limited because it’s difficult to design the cards in a way that allows for a smooth drafting experience. It’s tough to take Merfolk cards for most of pack one and then decide you should be in Dinosaurs. Lost Caverns of Ixalan tried to use explore as a cross-section between the two, but it’s too shallow of a mechanic to be the focus without heavy support, and there’s not enough support for an explore deck. You can also use explore to enable or feed descend, but it’s inconsistent and not all that exciting. I’d like to see more cards like Disinformation Campaign from Guilds of Ravnica with surveil. It's powerful enough on its own with only a couple instances of the keyword but can be incredibly powerful when you’re committed. Instead, we see cards like Twists and Turns, which is quite bad as a standalone card, and you need to be focused for it to be good or playable. Besides this mechanic, the payoffs are not that strong or reliable. Pirate’s Hat for drafting all Pirates? Various cards like Triumphant Chomp, Malamet Battle Glyph, and Belligerent Yearling for Dinosaurs? None of these cards move the needle when I’m making a pick as to whether I should focus on taking Dinosaurs or not. Last but not least, Caves missed the mark from what we’re used to with various past Gate synergies. Caves is not an archetype you should focus on, and because of that, there’s a lot of extra air in packs. I’m usually not excited to be focused on any archetype in the format, which makes logging on to draft feel more tedious. 3. Too Combat Focused Don’t get me wrong, almost every Limited format leans heavily on combat as its way to stand out from Constructed formats, and combat decisions are a big reason why Limited Magic is so fun. However, Limited formats where you can’t take a turn to cast a draw three have never been a favorite of mine, and this set is fast. There are a lot of playable, good one-drops in the format at both common and uncommon. This leads to faster games one way or another. As a person who drafted a lot of red initially, I would either run my opponent over with Goblin Tombraiders, or I’d be unable to attack through a curve out of my opponent's Dinosaurs, meaning I knew the game's result early on. Limited should have more of a back and forth, but when the format has a focus on Creature types and Equipment, it’s hard to effectively block, so often it's a matter of who's spending their mana to affect the board the most and who ends up with the best creature. Adding to the issue, the set has a lot of equipment that makes blocking more difficult. Missing on Caves' synergies is a big cost in this department, as that would be a cool thing to do that allowed you to not just win the game in combat but your synergies could carry you by drafting a powerful enough deck. My favorite Limited formats are ones I can win without worrying about curving out with Creatures and tricks, but more so having a fluid gameplan that can win a battle of attrition, such as with decks like Surveil UB, Gates, Spells Matter, or any other graveyard synergies. It's hard to stay enamored with a format when all that matters is your Creature's stats. 4. Not Enough Cheap Instant-Speed Interaction We have a two-mana bounce spell, a three-mana fight spell, a three-mana black removal spell at Instant, and the premium Abrade, but we’re missing cards like Shock to slow the games down. With as many solid one-drops as there are in the format, it would be nice to have a card that is both Instant-speed and one-mana to interact when they get equipped or enchanted with cards like Etali’s Favor. White gets Cosmium Blast, but that effect has never been strong enough and it’s no different here. There is some instant-speed interaction but not enough for interesting decisions in games. One-mana interaction should always find its way into formats when we get lots of one-mana creatures, even if it's just cards like Rat Out. It makes games more interesting and allows for slower decks to compete with decks able to play solid creatures starting at turn one. I don't feel that enthusiastic about drafting any specific archetype, and I haven't found in-game decisions that interesting. This leaves Lost Caverns of Ixalan Limited as falling in the "something to do, but I'd rather just play a different format" category. I will slug it out and see if I can force my way into enjoying this set more, but it's okay to say, "I guess this one's just not for me," and wait for another banger set to fill that void. If not, it's holiday season, which means there's always Vintage Cube.

It’s finally time to explore the Lost Caverns of Ixalan. The set went live today on Arena, and while I was invited to the early-access streamer event, I had to sit out because I was feeling under the weather from a vaccine. I found my preliminary games quite entertaining. I’m not basing these evaluations on just my matches, but I also spent a few hours spamming drafts on a simulator to see what good decks looked like. Lost Caverns of Ixalan is fairly deep, which is nothing new for current Limited formats. You’ll rarely run out of playables, however the packs are filled with tons of lands in the form of caves, so you still want to make sure you’re not bouncing around too much. There’s also some situational cards, sideboard cards, and tons of synergies that won’t necessarily overlap. There’s a mixture of themes from Kindred (our new word for what was once known as Tribal), artifacts, graveyard synergies, and a variety of other stuff that is a bit more niche, such as caves. My first thoughts are that it’s hard to run out of gas in Limited sets recently. Crafting allows for normal-rate cards like a Diabolic Edict to turn into an additional threat. These cards are better than they look, but in some cases, you will have diminishing returns and can sort of count them as top end. I played tons of games where I was drawing six-drops but also had six-mana crafting available, which makes the more expensive cards a lot less desirable. I like lean curves thus far, which may be exacerbated by all my games being played in best-of-one, but you don’t need to value top end as highly when your two- and three-mana artifacts with an early middling effect provide the ability to craft and transform into a big creature or effect. Drafting caves seems like a trap and more of a side synergy that you can occasionally pick up. You can’t reliably get caves that you actively want, and it's punishing when we do have all this crafting and top end to have too many lands that come in tapped. The most impressive decks so far have been RW Aggro, BW Midrange, and UB Descend Control. These archetypes are linear and well-supported. Cheap removal is premium as usual, but I don't like the looks of expensive removal. Expensive removal plays a larger role in formats where flooding out the opponent is reasonable. This doesn’t seem to be that type of format because crafting is a prolific feature. You deal with one big threat and another is likely staring you down later. It’s an unreasonable expectation to keep spending mana being reactive unless you’re able to also progress your board on those turns. You can play a copy of a card like Ray of Ruin, but it’s not a card I’d ever take happily. I was impressed with this UR Pirates deck. Unfortunately, I don’t think it's extremely replicable. People will realize soon that one-mana 2/2 haste is a great card even on turn two and beyond, and you won’t get them for free in a few days to come. UR is an up-tempo deck that can loot away a lot of lands with various effects, especially Pirate’s Hat, and use various cards' treasures on turns you want to advance your board or react. My typical games were to spend all my mana for the first four or so turns, and beyond that I’d have a treasure or two that I could use to hold up reactive cards such as Abrade. Equipment feels important for this archetype as a way to break through board stalls and continue to deal damage as their creatures begin to outclass yours. Pirate's Hat feels great, though may not be on the level of Pirate's Cutlass in the original Ixalan. The first deck I drafted was a midrange dinosaur deck with a lot of uncommons. It was weak to the players who cheaply interacted with my creatures, and it was especially bad against decks that had Tithing Blade, as it’s a card you can get fairly late that almost always trades up on mana. Blanking that card is easier in white or black decks that can leave a token lying around. Dinosaurs also felt weak against all the deathtouch creatures running around and made me have to interact with even the smallest creatures. The last deck I drafted started as a black-white midrange deck with both sacrifice and craft synergies, but I picked up some late caves and a couple of cave payoffs, in addition to some late Master’s Guide-Murals. This is where I learned that I need to scale back a smidge on the top end from what it looks like when you lay out your curve. Every game ended with me having about 12 more mana of cards left to use whether I won or lost. I should have cut something like the Gargantuan Leech, which I’d have been lucky to cast for five mana as is, and replaced it with another land because the deck was mana hungry. I managed to get to five wins, but it felt like it underperformed relative to its potential. Its mana was a bit rough, but other than that, it had everything you’d want from a deck, such as the ability to control the board early and a powerful late game. This is the kind of cave synergy I’d look to in the future, where all of it stumbles in your lap rather than take payoffs early to try and end up with a reasonable configuration of caves. I mostly lost against aggro decks, which I’d expect out of a deck like this in Bo1. So far the format feels solid and deep. I'm not sure it will be an all-time great format, but it feels above average in terms of depth and replayability. There’s so much to explore, and I can’t wait to explore it. If you want to catch some drafts, I usually stream once or twice a week at Twitch.tv/MSigrist83.

This week I want to take a look at more Lost Caverns of Ixalan. We now have the full set, so let's look at a few interesting cards. Bonehoard Dracosaur Bonehoard Dracosaur is a super interesting creature. It falls into the "dies to Doom Blade" category that we all joke about but generally holds powerful creatures like this back. However, Bonehoard Dracosaur is incredibly powerful. It's the kind of five-drop where it's hard to lose after you untap with it in play. It creates creatures and mana in the form of treasures, and it also draws two cards a turn. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when and if a card like this will see play because the format's texture matters. If there are a lot of low-removal linear decks that don't interact with creatures much, Dracosaur will be a must-play card. However, we already have creatures like Raffine and Sheoldred, so I think the format will be heavily creature-focused, which will knock Dracosaur down a peg or two. I expect to see Bonehoard make its way into decks immediately because of how much raw power it has, and it may be paired with a card like Skrelv or other ways to protect it because it's that powerful. Despite this, I am skeptical of all creatures that don't provide immediate value when they enter the battlefield. The TLDR is Bonehard Dracosaur is too powerful to not see play at least initially, but I don't expect it to be an omnipresent staple. Get Lost Get Lost is a nice new white removal tool that has potential to see play in multiple formats. It's two mana and versatile, but it has quite the downside. Two map tokens are a lot, especially in a world where we have mechanics that let us use random tokens to great effect, such as the newly added crafting. I'm low on Get Lost. I think it will feel and play out like Fateful Absence and will see about as much play. Generally, it's a huge downside for your opponent to have two opportunities to explore against heavy-creature decks, so you'll want this postboard against a deck that has creatures like Baneslayer Angel and no other creatures. Get Lost will cleanly answer that kind of sideboard card while providing almost no additional value to that style of deck, as it will be tough for them to utilize the map tokens to full effect. Get Lost is a much better card in an aggressive deck that can punish the opponent for spending time and mana on the map tokens in a short game. I don't think we'll see tons of copies of Get Lost in main decks, but it's a solid, versatile sideboard card that will find its way into players' 75s. Molten Collapse I'm not a big Dreadbore fanatic, but Molten Collapse is the real deal. While it's easier to descend in a format with fetch lands, it's not a huge challenge in any format. Molten Collapse is a strict upgrade to Dreadbore, a card that's played in small numbers in decks like Rakdos Midrange in Pioneer. Molten Collapse looks like an excellent option for a deck like Rakdos Sacrifice, allowing the deck to have a hard removal spell that can also kill problematic permanents like an opponent's Witch's Oven. Molten Collapse will always be solid and has a potentially back-breaking upside, which will make it playable in basically every format in some numbers. The older the format, the more likely you're going to find a card you want to kill that costs 1 mana or less in addition to a planeswalker or creature. While I'm not going to rush to buy four copies of Molten Collapse, it's the kind of card I want to own at least two of because of how high the upside is when triggering descend, and it's mana efficient enough to be seen across all formats. It's likely going to be played in some numbers for years to come. Vito, Fanatic of Aclazotz Borrowing a bit of design space from Omnath, Vito Fanatic of Aclazotz looks fun to try and get to work, but ultimately I doubt it will see much competitive play. The ideal deck for Vito would be a deck like Mardu Sacrifice, similar to what Autumn Burchett played at the last Pioneer PT since it would synergize well with Cat Oven and treasures. Tons of cards have been printed that are extremely good when you have Cat Oven going, for instance, Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin, and these cards are all to win more. If I wanted to add a four-drop to that deck, I'd want it to do something when I'm not all set up already. Vito has an issue that the first and second triggers aren't that meaningful, so you need to be able to go all the way to the third trigger or Vito is lackluster. With Omnath, not only do you draw a card upfront, the first and second triggers are the most important, and the third is extra value that you don't need to go out of your way to get. Inti, Seneschal of the Sun Inti, Seneschal of the Sun is a powerful two-drop in a low-curve aggressive deck. While it can give you immediate value when cast on two if it follows a one-drop, that value is not always appealing. Discarding a card to give a +1+1 counter isn't that exciting when you can't utilize the exiled card you'd also get from it. For this reason, this card lines up much better in a low-curve lean deck that has tons of one-drops. It's better suited as a card you play on turn three after you've developed your mana and creatures some, and you're immediately able to attack and exile a card, which could either be a land to play for the turn or potentially a one-drop to cast with your third land. Inti is the type of creature that demands an answer since it's generating board presence every turn similar to a Luminarch Aspirant. Inti, however, isn't going to put this lean, low-curve, aggro deck on the map. While it may be a playable support card, it won't be good in decks with a higher curve where you're discarding a card only to exile an uncastable spell, which will set you back some. I'm not buying Inti for now, but if Madness were to come back soon, Inti would be an interesting card to look to as an enabler. Bitter Triumph Bitter Triumph is a solid card that will see play in all formats. Despite having the same issue as Infernal Grasp in paying life repeatedly, Bitter Triumph negates this issue by allowing you to discard a card instead, and it's a solid outlet for certain decks that will happily discard a card. You could see it in all formats due to its mana efficiency. Bitter Triumph is solid all the way around and is a surefire addition to cubes everywhere. Geological Appraiser Bloodbraid Elf at home. Geological Appraiser is an interesting case study of how cards that were once dominant in Standard can still be effective in the more powerful environment we have today if downgraded a little. Geological Appraiser looked better when you could hit a Fable of the Mirror Breaker with Discover, but it's still a powerful card that provides you with an immediate board presence when it enters the battlefield. It will see play in heavy red decks looking for a threat that provides value. One issue with Discover is that it can be countered and you will not get the free spell as you would with Bloodbraid Elf, which was one of the big factors in Bloodbraid's success in a World of Jace the Mind Sculptors. As of today, I think Geological Appraiser could find a home in grindy, red, midrange Standard decks, but it's likely not powerful enough outside of Standard. One upside to the appraiser is that you can add a bunch of removal to your midrange deck, and if you cast it and don't have a target you can bank that removal in your hand for later. For this reason, Bloodbraid Elf was a much better cast when the opponent had permanents. Geological Appraiser isn't strictly worse than Bloodbraid, but it is meaningfully worse in a stronger environment. Geological Appraiser is worth testing, perhaps in a Rakdos Midrange style of deck, but I'm not sold that it's a staple like Bloodbraid Elf used to be. This will wrap up the cards I reviewed that looked interesting. Overall, this set looks fairly deep and interesting, and it will be a lot of fun to explore. Limited looks like it might be incredibly fun if the balance is there. All the set's mechanics are remastered versions of older mechanics that will make it more intuitive to play with than completely new mechanics. I'm most excited to play with Bonehoard Dracosaur, as it seems so powerful, and I'm eager to see if it has a place anywhere outside of Limited where it will absolutely ruin games.