This past week I had my nose to the grindstone focusing on Shadows Remastered for the Draft Open, so this week I’m getting caught up on the previews I missed and will go over some of my favorites. We also have a whole new card type, battles, to discuss. Let’s look at some of the more exciting cards in March of the Machine and start by talking about battles. Battles If you missed it, battles is a new card type that provides value on the front side and then comes into play with their own life total. You can attack like a planeswalker, and when the battle is won and its “loyalty” becomes zero, it transforms into something else to provide more value. By nature, this card type will be better on the play. You’re in a much better position to attack it on the play and potentially play the battle then you get to attack and flip it the same turn. Let’s look at this first battle that looks interesting as an example of how the play patterns may work. Invasion of Tolvada For five mana, you get a strict upgrade to an old card Obezdat’s Aid. This card looks custom designed to squeeze right into Atraxa builds, as it can reanimate the Atraxa, find more copies of Invasion, and after attacking it once with the Atraxa, you’ll be able to win the battle and provide yourself with a token engine of 2/1 flying lifelinkers, a Bitterblossom if you will. This card could play in all kinds of token decks as well as The Broken Sky backside will pump your whole team. If you’re a go-wide deck, you’re likely better equipped to play the battle and flip it in the same turn, especially if you’re able to bring back a card like Brutal Cathar, Liliana of the Veil, or anything that can remove a blocker from play to allow whatever board presence you’ve created in the first few turns to flip the battle immediately. Archangel Elspeth I’m not very big on Archangel Elspeth. It’s competing directly in the mana slot with The Wandering Emperor, which plays much better from behind and doesn’t force you to commit your mana at sorcery speed. While it's a cool callback to the original Elspeth, Knight-Errant, it’s likely a bit worse given it needs to minus to make a creature fly and cards have gotten a lot more powerful. Once the Wandering Emperor rotates, if we have an aggressive white Standard deck, Archangel Elspeth may fill a role, but it would likely only be in the event we see true control decks or if you get a powerful enough battle you want to flip using the minus to send a creature to the sky to win the battle on curve. Sword of Once and Future While this sword looks really cool, Swords have long been too weak for constructed outside of Stoneforge Mystic decks, many of which don't play many instants and sorceries these days, which makes this Sword worse than it may look on its face. Even for my cube I'm reluctant to add this because it’s worse than other swords in Mono White Aggro. I love Swords and look back fondly on the days where they were playable constructed cards, but they’re too slow and clunky, and Sword of Once and Future is no different. Zurgo and Ojutai This is a strong version in the Glorybringer cycle. A 4/4 flying haste with upside is the going rate on a card that’s seen tons of Standard play, and Zurgo and Ojutai isn’t different. Depending on the game state and match-up, this card will play out in tons of different ways—having the ability in a game of draw-go to play this attack, get a free Anticipate out of the deal, and then you can decide if you want to leave it in play or bring it back to your hand to keep it protected. When you’re behind you’ll likely need to spend mana on something else, but if you’re far ahead you can keep them in an Ojutai lock, never letting them interact with it unless it's on the stack. While I’m not sure this card is worth building a Jeskai deck around, it’s certainly a card I’d test in any deck that it can be reliably cast. Unfortunately, we don’t have a Jeskai Triome, but we have a plaza of heroes that may do some work casting Zurgo and Ojutai. Borborygmos and Fblthp This is a tough one to evaluate. On one hand, it’s at rate for a strong creature, draws an extra card when it comes into play, and even has a way to keep itself in the game by putting itself third from the top. Five-mana cards need to do a lot these days to compete, however. Borborygmos and Fblthp can take out a creature every turn while funneling through lands. When I look at this card, the first card that comes to mind is Slogurk, the Overslime. Together the cards can create an engine. They’re both legendary and will likely want you to play a lot of lands with Channel Lands to use as spells. This is certainly something I’m interested in looking at on the sets release. While this card doesn’t quite look there, it may be a diamond in the rough in a Slogurk deck. Lithomantic Barrage This is another card in a strong sideboard card cycle. I generally like these cards since they see play across formats and give a variety of sideboard options. This one can kill both a Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and a Baneslayer Angel much like a Fry but at sorcery speed. This card will see cross-format play in small numbers. Importantly, this card kills Raffine for a single mana, which may prove important, especially after rotation. Sheoldred I find the name of this card quite funny, as four-mana Sheoldred already sees tons of play. There’s a whole cycle of these flip Praetors, and at a glance Sheoldred seems to slide right into Standard as the best of the bunch. It’s in the best color and while it won’t always get what it's looking to kill, it seems like Sheoldred will often play out like a five-mana Nekrataal and will in many spots be a clean answer to a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Sheoldred occupies the same mana slot as Invoke Despair. While the front side isn’t anything to sneeze at, the kind of deck that will play Sheoldred best is a deck like Grixis Midrange that plays lots of interaction and drags the game out, using Sheoldred as a top-end card that can easily find its opponent with the requisite eight cards in the graveyard to flip into The True Scriptures. So far, Sheoldred seems like a playable card if the format looks a lot like it does now. If it shifts and there are a lot of cards like Spirited Companion and other leftover creatures left in play, the front side won’t be justifiable enough. Context of the format will matter a lot for Sheoldred, but this card looks solid to me if we could just slide it right into Grixis Midrange right now. Boon-Bringer Valkyrie This is a Baneslayer upgrade of sorts. Boon-Bringer Valkyrie is destined to see play somewhere, but I want to acknowledge it’s in some cases worse than Baneslayer given that it can die to Rending Volley with the backup trigger on the stack. However, the backup ability does provide a lot of game decisions with the creature, as you’ll often want to backup a creature before to get an immediate use of flying, first strike, and lifelink it will give to a creature for a turn. I like the backup mechanic since it will provide you with some interesting decisions and make playing a card like Baneslayer Angel more of a strategic choice than slam it and cross your fingers it survives. It notably dies to Lithomantic Barrage. In red decks like Mono Red aggro, five-damage-based removal is going to be a barrier to entry to compete with Boon-Bringer Valkyrie and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Deeproot Wayfinder It’s a sweet two-drop that has a real cut down issue, but if you get it going and connect even once to get an early mana advantage it will start a snowball to roll down hill. This card is a Merfolk, but I see it more as a traditional midrange card that can block Fable tokens and swing through them. While this card isn’t likely a format all-star, it reminds me a lot of a card like Grim Flayer that will be a nice two-drop on the play when you can play a turn ahead and clear the path for it. I could see a world where this finds a home in a Jund deck alongside Soul of Windgrace with Riveteers Overlook and perhaps Terramorphic Expanse. While the card looks only OK, there’s something to be said for the upside of it connecting and putting a land into play immediately. We’ve seen how strong producing additional mana turn after turn can be with Goblin Shaman tokens from Fable, and this puts a land into play permanently while also giving you the ability to scry and find what you’re looking for. I’m excited to give this card a try in Standard, though I suspect it falls short outside of Standard. Monastery Mentor I’m not quite sure what to think about Monastery Mentor. It’s unlikely to make waves in Standard initially, as I think other powerful three-drops are better right now. It’s asking you to play a lot of non-creature spells, which generally leads to being fairly reactive. However, many of the best cards in Standard right now are creatures, especially the white cards between Skrelv and Thalia. It’s going against the grain. We do see decks like Mono W midrange that play a ton of non-creature spells, so it could find a home there either as main deck or more likely in small numbers out of the sideboard to make sideboarding against an otherwise low creature count tricky, as being too reactive against the deck is not where you want to be. I’m thinking Mentor sadly will see little play, but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see it shine after another set is released and a rotation. Currently, I think it’s not quite there. I’m floored at how many exciting cards are in March of the Machine. The set feels a bit higher power level on average, but the ceiling doesn’t look too high yet, which is a good place to be. It almost reminds me of Khans of Tarkir in that way. Next week we’ll likely be back looking at some more exciting cards from March of the Machines, as there are quite a few more I’d like to discuss.

This upcoming weekend is the Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered Arena Open. Limited Opens are my favorite events to play in MTG these days, so I decided to prep a little. I’m glad I did because the remastered version of Shadows Over Innistrad is different and more fun than I remember Limited being. While the format can be fast, it’s easier to halt aggression. The games turn out grindy. The creature sizing is relatively small, so it’s easier to wall up and use cheap efficient removal to keep the battlefield relatively stable. Between Investigate, Madness, Tokens, and good-old-fashioned card draw, there are a lot of ways to come out ahead on cards. Combined with the cheap removal, it’s important to find some kind of engine to keep card flow going or risk getting buried in the mid-game. Additionally, there are a lot of incredibly strong rares because of added slots to a bonus sheet. I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly how this works, but the gist of it is that the bonus sheet will change week to week, meaning some cards you never saw may show up later. This is a pretty cool twist to keep things a little fresher while maintaining the flow of the format. On top of the moving target rares, there’s also a lot of rarity downshifting that moved rares to uncommon or even common (looking at you Imprisoned in the Moon). In some cases, cards got upshifted in rarity from common to uncommon, like Pieces of the Puzzle and Vessel of Nascency. I did about a dozen drafts at this point, and I’ve had a stellar win rate, as I seem to get seven wins in virtually every draft. However, I’m climbing ranks, so take that with a grain of salt. I will probably hit mythic by day’s end after writing this, as I’m deep in Diamond and only taking a break to write. I have a specific set of decks I like to draft, but I’m open to drafting anything. My one rule is to avoid black. Black was always the worst color in this format, and remastering didn’t do it any favors. However, I’m willing to break out of that if I open a really strong rare. One of the main reasons I’m low on black is it’s the worst color for removal in the set. Even blue has better ways to handle creatures in play than black. Black generally has a solid Murder-type card, but in this format we get Certain Death, which is too expensive. Usually I don’t want more than one or zero copies of the card. Black has tons of tokens and ways to grind, but it’s difficult without common removal. Kindly Stranger is probably the best black removal outside of rares, and it requires set-up. When it’s good it’s quite strong, but Derlium is no easy feat unless you’re focusing strongly on that, which is a viable strategy. This deck went 7-0 and was quite focused on picking up Delirium. I kept a low curve and played 15 lands thanks to the hand smoother, otherwise I would have cut a creature of some sort, maybe Mournwillow, and added a land. Obsessive Skinner is my pick for most undervalued common, as I constantly wheel them and it’s hard to stop when it gets going. I think people have been fairly good about not drafting black since it seems to be open a lot. I prefer to be in Temur colors. In fact, UG Clues is a criminally underdrafted deck. The deck is quite strong when you get some key uncommons, and you can generally pick them up late. This deck is full on stall and mill. Looking back I would have played the fourth Drag Under over the Wretched Gyff, but I convinced myself to put the Gryff in my deck because I remembered it being very good. It’s not a card I’m a big fan of currently, but I don’t mind playing one in my decks if I need a card. Drag Under is fantastic, and all this deck wants to do is buy time and set up milling the opponent out with Fleeting Memories, a card you’ll almost always wheel. I’m happy to snap it up early and often and move into this archetype if I think it’s open. Startled Awake is bomb level since it’s so easy to stall out and use to close the game. It’s easy to dig for with all the mill and card draw in the format. Nahiri’s Wrath is a good reason to play a Gryff, and the card is obscene. I don’t understand why it’s not doing better on 17Lands.com data, but I chalk that up to players using it poorly. It’s much better in decks trying to stall the game and draw cards than decks trying to hit the ground running. Maybe players are drafting red too aggressively whereas I keep a more controlling build. Regardless, the way I draft UG is to focus on generating value in some form, whether self-mill and getting the most out of Delirium cards or having a focused Clue strategy and payoff, you need inevitability. As I said, it’s easy to get in the form of mill. My next favorite archetype is UR. Probably the only reason I don’t like it more is that it’s very popular. This is a weird one and the first time I drafted UR in the format. I opened Thing in the Ice and forced the archetype. While my deck turned out fine, and I got seven wins, I don’t like some of my choices in retrospect. I should have played Jace’s Scrutiny over Harvest Hand for example. Either way this deck had cheap removal and some tempo plays and just enough card advantage with Pore Over the Pages that we got there. Alchemist’s Greeting keeps moving up in my pick order, as it’s much easier to turn on the Madness than I anticipated initially. Again, the Wretched Gryff looked medium here, but early in the format I remembered it as a strong blue common in Eldritch moon and wanted to continue to try the card. This UR deck is potentially the best deck I’ve drafted in the format because it has so much removal and card advantage. I lost one game with this one to an unchecked Archangel Avacyn. Ingenious Skaab was considered one of the best commons in Eldritch Moon, yet I get them almost last pick repeatedly. While I don’t love the card, it is way higher value than getting it on the wheel, so you can find some value there. Avacyn’s Judgment is more absurd this time around because Madness outlets like Ravenous Bloodseeker got downshifted to common. The premium uncommon you want to pick up with UR is Rise from the Tides. Rise from the Tides also has a lower win rate than expected on 17Lands.com. My guess is that people are playing it when it’s not good enough and drafting poorly around the card. Draft-around cards will have this effect, which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t draft them, it means we should learn to utilize them better. It’s not a card you want to take p1p1 and force a deck because your deck will end up bad when you get cut. It’s a card to pick up once you find your lane, and it won’t fit into every single deck. An important part of this format is to find your lane first and know which cards are best for that lane, or when you get there, take cards that supplement that plan. If UR is wide open, it’s easy to know which cards to take because it’s a “spells matter” color combo with little other direction to move. With UG, you can go in a bunch of different directions, so figuring out which pieces you want will be determined by the draft-around you pick up, of which there are many. The TLDR (too long didn’t read) version: Draft a deck in this format, not just cards. Having said that, sometimes you have a bunch of strong rares and you can pick up wins off their backs. Here are some example of decks where my rares carried me: Elder Deep-Fiend, Thing in the Ice, and Noosegraf Mob are all strong rares that if any were replaced by commons it would have severely hurt my deck. I had to make some concessions to my Thing in the Ice to play maximum instants and sorceries, but it did its job when drawn. This deck is bad, but Elder-Deep Fiend is so strong, and I’m able to find it enough that the deck did its job. This is a deck full of good cards, so it’s not surprising I picked up a bunch of wins here. There’s plenty of removal, a solid curve, and of course, lots of strong rares. Collective Effort and Archangel Avacyn lead the way, but Ever After was nice by providing the ability to grind a little more. I see Avacyn’s Collar go criminally late, but that may be due to white also being a bit underdrafted. I’m still seeing Thraben Inspectors go seventh and eighth pick far too often. Regardless, I want my white decks to look more like this than tons of cheap bad creatures and combat tricks. Equipment is more valuable because the games in this format seem less about tempo and more about finding ways to break through the stall In general, my best advice for this format would be to take good rares if you open or get passed them and to not be too picky about colors. Games are long, and you’ll get more wins the better your card quality. In this format, you need to spend mana in early turns, especially against some of the werewolves cards. The games get grindy once you’re able to get into the mid-game without much pressure on you. Have a plan for going long. At this point, I’ve decided I have too much going on the weekend of San Diego, so I’m going to skip the Regional Championships and focus on online tournaments. There’s an outside shot I get FOMO and book a ticket, but as of now I’m happy to stay home and grind the plethora of online events offered to us, including the Arena Open this weekend. If you’re on the fence about playing it, Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered is a lot of fun and is worth playing. #mtgarenaopen #mtginnistrad #95mtg #mtglimited

The One Ring is going to be among us! We’ve learned a little more about a set coming out soon, Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth, over the past few weeks. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a reader, but I’ve been infatuated with the lore of Lord of the Rings since I was four- or five-years-old. I’ve loved the story since watching an animated version of The Hobbit as a child at my aunt’s house. I’ve never read the books, but I watched the movies multiple times, and as a young kid I played another CCG called Middle Earth. I couldn’t tell you the rules these days, but nonetheless the lore of the game hooked me. This is one of the most sensible MTG crossovers we’ve seen. The lores of both Lord of the Ring and Magic make sense together. However, as much as I’d love to discuss how great the set’s previewed cards are, most of them are bad for a competitive format, at least until we know what the phrase “the ring tempts you” means for Frodo, Sauron’s Bane and what extent, if any, this text affects other cards. Let’s look at some stuff we’ve seen thus far. Remember these cards won’t be put into Standard. This is a straight-to-Modern set, so think of it like Modern Horizons 3. Sauron, the Lidless Eye: The closest comparison is Zealous Conscripts, except Sauron has no ability to combo with a card like Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki. As a mythic rare, this is disappointing. I wouldn’t expect this card to be played much anywhere. It’s seemingly supposed to fit into a traditional sacrifice theme in Rakdos, but it’s not good enough for a five-mana spell. Aragorn and Arwen, Wed: This is a powerful-looking Limited card. I could see this card being played in EDH or something similar, but it’s not close to a Modern-power-level card. Six mana better do a lot, and this ain’t it. Reprieve: Similar to a white Remand, Reprieve is a card that will likely see some play here and there as a way to leverage overwhelming board position in aggressive white decks like Hammer Time. While I’m skeptical, this card at least fits the bill. Gandalf the Grey: It’s a weird direction for Gandalf the Grey, as I would assume it would be at least white. Gandalf fits the bill of other rare and mythic legends we’ve seen as flavorfully cool and fairly strong for Limited, but it’s not quite playable in Standard let alone playable in Modern. Five mana is too much given that each ability has a cap before it has to go on top of the deck to restart the cycle. It’s flavorfully fairly cool, but in practice it’s not a card we’re likely to see outside of Limited and EDH. Samwise the Stouthearted: This is actually a fairly reasonable creature. This can recycle a card like Wasteland, Urza’s Saga, a Fetchland. I could see Samwise finding a home. It’s sort of a white Snapcaster Mage. This depends on what “the ring tempts you” text actually means. If it’s just for Frodo, Sauron’s Bane, then it’s a totally reasonable card. Frodo, Sauron’s Bane: Frodo will fall short of playability outside of something like EDH and Limited. It’s not efficient enough to keep pace with a powerful Modern format. Unless the “ring tempts you” does something extremely beneficial, which would go against the grain of the flavor, then Frodo won’t be good enough. The Shire: This is a very flavorful card. The hobbits love eating, and The Shire includes that flavor, but it’s a weak card that likely won’t see any Modern play. Maybe it would find some fringe play if you could reveal a legend to have it enter the battlefield untapped. As is, it won’t see competitive play. Mount Doom: Mount Doom is a cool card. It’s flavorful, and I could see it included in a deck here and there. I’ll probably try it as a Rakdos Dual in Cube. You can search it out with Golos and sacrifice Golos for it, but otherwise it’s a mediocre dual lands. While it’s not great, the effect can be powerful. While it’s unlikely to see much play in Modern, I could see a copy here and there in BR decks that fit the criteria or want the activated ability to deal one. It’s a cool design that’s not that strong, but it’s still a fun, flavorful card. The One Ring: Last but not least, we have The One Ring. This card is awesome. While it’s not completely busted, it’s possible we see this card played competitively in formats like Legacy or Vintage. You can loop two of these with Academy Ruins or Emry to never face lethal outside of your own turn. It gives you a full set-up turn, even against discard in a combo deck. You essentially get a Time Walk out of a combo deck, and as many have pointed out, it’s a two-card-draw-your-entire-deck combo with Mind Over Matter. The One Ring is a card that will likely go into every single EDH deck, as its effect is multiplicative. Since it’s a Lord of the Rings card, it’s possible it’s also reprint-proof, as I’m not sure how they go about reprinting singular cards from crossover sets. For that reason, this card may be at its cheapest when the packs start flying off the shelves, especially given that they’re printing the 1-of-1 The One Ring. There’s a lot of speculation on whether the 1-of-1 The One Ring will be the most expensive card in MTG history. I’d guess no, but I could be wrong. It’s impossible to tell. There’s crossover appeal and the flavor appeal that adds to the card’s lore and value. The One Ring will create a huge desire This was a great way to break into the 1-of-1 game for WotC. There may be LOTR fans that get into Magic because this card exists, and that’s awesome for the future of Magic. Chasing the precious in the form of buying packs is not behavior I’d endorse. The One Ring will create a huge desire for consumers to crack packs until this card is found, then the pack sales, or at least the opening of the packs, will drop. Singles may end up on the cheaper side early and start to trend up later after this card is opened. As someone who’s been buying singles for Cube, I’ll be buying singles from this set early for that reason. Getting into the 1-of-1 game is cool for WotC, but it does come with some concerns. This card specifically will probably get into the lower six figures but won’t reach seven. I think it can create two or more people who want the card and have the means to fight each other in some sort of bidding war. It’s possible it ends up unopened, creating inflated prices for the collector boosters later. There’s a lot of interesting outcomes for this 1-of-1 ring, and I’m sure players and WotC will have an eye on how it all plays out. One thing is for sure… One thing is for sure, the serialized number cards will continue to take hits as more are produced. This was true with sports cards and will be true with MTG as well. The more unique cards there are, then the less unique the cards themselves become. If everything is different, then they’re kind of all the same. I think long term this card will be valuable and may some day hit the seven-figure mark, but initially I can’t see it going for as much as a near-mint, graded Alpha Lotus. Those are incredibly rare and more iconic within the MTG community. It would take multiple people with lots of disposable income to get this card’s price much higher. If I had to put a price tag on it right now, I’d guess it ends up around $200,000 USD. If I was in charge of WotC, I’d give it some time before producing another 1-of-1, but I suspect they’ll start pumping them out if they exceed sales expectations with this set. The One Ring is a good thing for MTG All in all, I think the 1-of-1 The One Ring is a good thing for MTG. The game is very collectible, and collectibility and crossover should only add to the size of the player base. As for the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth set, from what we’ve seen this is more like a Commander set with cards legal in Modern than a Modern Horizons set. The power level is low, and we’ve seen a lot of the cards with the most iconic names from the franchise. I’m not expecting this set to do much to Modern, but I’m sure we’ll see a few spicy cards as they continue to come out. Regardless, I’m excited to at least experience this set for Limited. I believe this set will be out by the third PT of the year, which leads me to believe there’s a shot we’ll be seeing Lords of the Ring Limited at the PT Level and perhaps a Modern Pro Tour. We’ll find out soon enough. #Frodo #SauronsBane #theonering #mtglordoftherings #LordoftheRingsTalesofMiddleEarth

I spent this past weekend glued to my screen watching and tracking various Standard events. I was feeling a bit exhausted and under the weather, so I skipped the cool online events but wanted to keep my finger on the metagame’s pulse by watching what was happening. The biggest, and in my eyes, the most important event was in Naples. Here’s the breakout deck, Esper Legends. Esper Legends by Thoralf Severin While not completely off the radar, Esper Legends came out of nowhere to put on a dominating performance. The key? Adding Wedding Announcement to a Thalia deck. Wedding Announcement puts in work against Grixis, especially when drawn in multiples. Thalia taxes it, but it also taxes a majority of the deck by making the opponent sequence awkwardly, especially when Grixis is on the draw. This build, played by four great players, really put on a show and put up incredible results. Grixis is public enemy number one, and when you look at typical Grixis lists going into this event, the scarcity of one-mana cards is the biggest thing you’ll notice. Esper Legends can punish that by playing Skrelv and Thalia, which makes it a nightmare always playing one or two turns behind. To top that off, Raffine and Sheoldred end the game quickly. The best thing about this Esper Legends deck is it plays zero Raffine’s Tower. Plaza of Heroes, one of the sneaky best cards in the format, is doing heavy lifting. With a huge majority of good cards being Legends in Standard right now, Plaza of Heroes is amazing at letting you curve out smoothly and play ahead, even on the draw. While Esper Legends was a small portion of metagames this past weekend, I expect it to be represented in similar numbers to Grixis moving forward. It has a solid proactive game plan, tons of customization within its sideboard, and few flex spots. While Esper Legends was the breakout deck of the RC in Naples, it didn’t win. It was Grixis. We all knew Grixis would continue to be a menace, but there are many different ways to build it, and it can morph what it wants to fight. Michael Rohrback’s winning list was a near-perfect build to fight against aggressive decks. This list came packed with tons of cheap removal. Michael said in his winner interview that he came prepared to fight the Arena metagame, which was lots of aggro, like Mono Red, Esper Legends, and Toxic. He brought all four copies of Cut Downs and Go for the Throats and left most of his Abrades at home. This deck looks ripe to fight the enemy but seems it would struggle in mirrors. I looked into his match-ups, and Michael beat everything before sweeping three Esper Legends decks in T8. My guess is that Michael played extremely well and drew well in mirrors. He can customize his deck after game one to look much like his opponent’s, so while he was likely disadvantaged in mirrors in game one with tons of removal where others had Bankbusters, the sample of game ones is small enough that it’s possible to overcome a small game-one-deck disadvantage with great play and sideboard plans. I love the Graveyard Trespasser’s here. It’s a card we haven’t seen a lot of in Standard recently, but it plays nicely in mirrors and can do some work against various Atraxa builds. I noticed Michael played 25 lands, one or two less than usual, which makes a lot of sense when you’re playing a build that’s more one-for-one reactive. I still wouldn’t be comfortable with less than 26, though. The question moving forward is, is this the way people will build Grixis? Will Grixis lose enough metashares to new decks like Toxic, Esper Legends, and others to stop worrying about beating itself? I don’t think so, as people will play what they’re comfortable with and rely on Bloodtithe Harvester, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, and Corpse Appraiser to do the heavy lifting. The rest will be customization from player to player, which will put someone trying to beat everything in a tough spot because Grixis is every deck’s best, and worst, match-up. It depends on the build you’re playing against and who’s the pilot. The next event I kept an eye on was the RC in Canada. The one thing I noticed when looking over the metagame was that unlike other RCs, Vancouver had an over 15% metagame share of Mono Blue. This seems like a lot of good players decided that they wanted to beat midrange decks and wildly underestimated the presence of aggro. While Mono U is a playable deck in specific metagames, it doesn’t prey heavily on decks like Grixis. It may be a slight favorite, but in the past when blue tempo decks like this have been good, it’s because its worst match-ups played close, and its best matchups were extremely good. One reason we played a Mono U tempo deck at Worlds was that it seemed like it was attacking all the decks well, and its worst match-ups weren’t too bad. It was a small tournament with a fairly predictable metagame. In this event, the field is much more open and unpredictable, and the deck has too many mid match-ups. While I’m not an expert on the deck, it always seemed too vulnerable and more of a solid budget option than an actually good deck. Wondering if I was incorrect, I took a look at the event after the fact to see how Mono U did overall. I looked at the first page of results which had 25 players, and none of them were Mono U, so I was pretty happy my read was correct. It’s possible people didn’t want to invest resources to get those decks, as something like Sheoldred is expensive these days and basically required to play Standard. In which case, yeah, Mono U is a solid budget option. Looking at the tournament finals, we see Mono White took the trophy home in the hands of William La Hay. Mono White Midrange by William La Hay This build is also unique by focusing on Farewell and removing Ossification from the main deck entirely. The plan against aggressive decks is likely focusing on bridging the game toward casting Farewell and taking over from there. Another interesting note is that this deck played the maximum number of both Field of Ruin and Demolition Field, thus focusing on punishing mana bases that opted to not play many basics. I believe this will have a ripple effect and people will include more basics in their list to not get Strip Mined every turn. Between 8x Field of Ruins decks and Razorlash Transmogrant, the more basics you can play the better. It creates tension with the channel lands and makes you re-evaluate your priorities, which is sort-of a cool deck-building dilemma. The deck that lost to Mono W is one that has me excited. Michael Van Vaals, a player I know from playing deep in a GP years ago and from seeing his name over and over since that time. This man is a stone cold killer. Michael played a deck I was incredibly impressed with and wrote about after Worlds. It’s a deck I’ve been trying to get to work. I refer to the deck as Slogaak, but the deck plays similarly to Esper Legends. It adds a color for the namesake card, Slogurk, The Overslime. The deck can curve out similarly to Esper Legends, but if the opponent spends too much time and resources trying to keep pace in the early and mid game, Slogurk plus Takenuma and Otawara loops can put almost any deck out of reach. Four-Color Legends by Michael Van Vaals This is a deck I like more in theory than practice, but I may revisit it given this result. I’m most surprised by seeing zero copies of Skrelv in the 75. I could see a low number because it’s important to spread out the names of your Legends since they make your channel lands cheaper. However, seeing zero is surprising because you can find a spot to cast it and it protects your busted creatures. It’s a good call if you expect to race your opponents. I’d try to cut a card or two and add two copies, likely over a card like Ao that is expensive for this type of deck. In testing for Worlds, Slogurk was solid-to-good against Grixis, but it was getting punished by Esper repeatedly to the point we put it down expecting Esper to be the most-played deck. With Esper Legends becoming a bigger share, if that is still the case, Slogurk may be a one-and-done deal. I’m happy to see it perform since the deck is one of my favorite decks that I never got the pleasure of playing in an event. If GPs or lower stakes tournaments existed, I would have given it a test run because I enjoy the deck a lot. There were more RCs this weekend, and the only surprising deck I saw was this Azorious Soliders deck winning a smaller RC in Taiwan. Azorious Soldier by Rocky Lin: This deck is unique in that it doesn’t play Thalia, a card I thought was a staple in these Azorius decks. Instead, it’s more of a slash-tempo style with cards like Resolute Reinforcements and Zephyr Sentinel to go with a counterspell package of Protect the Negotiators and Make Disappear. This list looks to be a much better tempo deck than Mono U because it can outrace other aggro decks but also play the flash-tempo game against decks like Grixis. While this deck may be a good metacall, it will depend if we see people showing up with four main deck Cut Downs in decks like Grixis, or if we see Grixis players still trying to beat each other rather than fight the rest of the field. This was a small event with only 60 players, so I don’t put as much weight into it as larger events with more rounds, but it’s interesting to see such a huge spread of decks doing well in a bunch of different RCs. If I had to play this weekend, I’d likely play a Grixis deck similar to the EU winners list. Esper Legends being the flavor of the week will mean people are more likely to pick it up, sick of losing with random Grixis lists themselves, and it’s a good time to attack that part of the metagame. I have a few weeks before San Diego, and while I was bullish on going last week, there’s an outside chance I sit it out. I have very much enjoyed spending time with my family this past weekend and not worrying about playing MTG. I’m going to prepare as if I’m going, but if I feel like I’m flying all the way across the country and spending time and money just to flip coins playing a boring stock deck with no edge, I’ll likely just stay home. If I feel confident, I’ll show up and prepare as if that is the case. This Standard format is healthy and has a good amount of churn, but for a professional player looking for edges, a healthy format isn’t always the best. Either way, I’m looking forward to preparing with friends and setting us up to have a great run at the event. Hope to see you there! #95mtg #mtgevents #standard #thebestprices

Today we are talking about Standard, the most varied format. Although Grixis is the deck to beat, it still allows players to have a great choice of decks to play. Let’s look at some possible choices. Grixis Control As mentioned before, this is the deck to beat. It’s a mixture of solidity and strong cards. The meta is full of midrange cards like Invoke Despair and Bankbuster. In a midrange mirror, what makes the difference is drawing cards and not running out of resources while limiting your opponent’s resources as much as possible. This deck manages to do it perfectly. Sheoldred is a perfect card in this meta, especially in games that last longer than usual. Mono White Midrange On the other hand, if you are looking for a deck that can play well against Grixis and you like to play this color, then Mono White Midrange might be a good choice. There’s good overall solidity and lots of cards that put the strongest deck in trouble. Loran is one of them. It destroys Fable of the Mirror Breaker and blocks the token. Not too many decks can do this 2×1. The Wandering Emperor is another strong card because it can make the board and acts as an instant removal. Wedding Announcement and Serra Paragon are two other important cards for this deck. Both of them make advantage in different ways. The enchantment allows you to create the board and draw cards, as well as make creatures stronger afterwards. Serra Paragon lets you, for example, revive a Loran after it has blocked or revive a Wedding Announcement or Ossification after they have been destroyed. Mono Red Aggro Mono Red is a different deck type and is currently the best aggro deck in the format. It’s a very aggressive deck. There are eight one-mana drops without considering the various spells and Kumano. It has hard starts to face, especially for midrange decks that may cast their first spell around turn three. Despite not being played in all decks, I feel Mechanized Warfare is very strong. It does extra damage to all cards in the opponent’s deck, significantly lowering the clock. Chandra is a strong planeswalker with versatility, card advantage, speed, and it’s a good ultimate. In short, it’s everything we need. Mono Blue Tempo This is a tempo deck that is well-positioned in the current meta. Aggro decks are its worst match-up, and there aren’t many aggro decks in the format. Eight creatures are perfect for this deck. There’s the Delver that we already know well. The Djinn is probably the strongest card in the deck because it puts great pressure and reduces the cost of spells, so defending it is the biggest priority. Flow of Knowledge is the card that most of all gave consistency to this deck. Without it the deck would lose a lot of resources. Counters, which are played a lot, can make a difference in a meta that is not too fast. We have seen only some of the decks that can be played. Don’t forget that Jund, Soldiers, Esper, 5cMidrange or Poison are great choices as well. It’s enjoyable to play the current Standard. There’s a lot of variety and with the next expansion coming in a month or so, there will probably be even more decks. The first of these that comes to mind is Abzan with Thalia and the Gitrog Monster, or maybe WB Control will return with Drana and Linvala. We just have to wait and see how the format will evolve! #mtggrixis #mtgstandard #95mtg #grixisdeck

Last week I turned 40. It’s hard to believe, but for more than half of those years, I’ve been closely entwined with this wonderful game we play, Magic. After years of the pandemic, and my own personal struggles inside of it, things were finally in an optimal place to celebrate, My wife, friends, and old testing partners organized a get-together that I will never forget. We rented a cabin in Maine and were snowed in during a snowstorm that dropped over a foot of snow. We had plans that had to get moved around, so instead we played a lot of Magic. We played Vintage Cube for hours, and Tom Martell also brought Extended decks from GP Houston 2001 and we battled with those. Tom and I began by battling an old Zombie Infestation deck against a friend of mine’s GP-winning Sultai Control deck. We laughed about how bad the Infestation deck was by today’s standards and talked about all the stuff that made Magic special back then. Low-powered threats, high-powered spells, and most importantly, the metagames’ diversity, not because of format health, but because of the lack of online options leading to much less proliferation of the strongest archetypes. Formats moved incredibly slowly, and those who worked hard had a huge edge over the field. The most glaringly obvious thing we noticed was how much different it felt to come back from behind. It was actually possible, and that was refreshing. Others proceeded to join in the fun, and we had a good time experiencing old Magic. Cube drafts started firing, and while winning didn’t provide anything to the winner, the person who went 0-3 was forced to make a snow angel. Fortunately, this was the same person each time, Sam Pardee. He managed to achieve this record three times. Impressive stuff, really. We played most of the Arena Open. I fired a single bullet and missed for day two, and as much as I love playing the draft Arena Opens, I wanted to cherish every minute with my friends who spent their time, money, and attention to come see me. We reminisced about the past and pondered what the future may look like. A couple of the people made day two, but I believe only Sam Pardee managed to take it down playing his last few matches at a restaurant when we finally got out of the house. He went clean undefeated and won the $2000. Upon this success, as the master of ceremonies, I declared he was absolved from doing a third snow angel. We spent a little time watching the RCs in other regions and brainstorming. It was like being in a testing house but without deck submission deadlines. It was amazing. While I did the same stuff I do most weekends at home on Discord. Being in person just hits different. different. At dinnertime, it was Marcus’s turn to shine. Cooking fantastic meals for a group of 18 people is tough, but he killed it. Big shoutouts to both Nicole and Jacob, as well. Jacob tended the fire all weekend in our beautiful fireplace, while Nicole did God’s Work cleaning up, doing dishes, keeping snacks refreshed, and tolerating all of our BS. Escape rooms are something we always try to do when we get together. We went to a fantastic spot called Maine Escape Games. We split into groups of five, did two separate rooms, and competed for who could finish both in the fastest time. My squad consisted of myself, my wife Heather, our friend Nicole, Tom Martell, and Alexander Hayne. Our opponents were Sam Pardee, Jacob Wilson, Matt Nass, Marcus Luong, and Devyn March. I was impressed with both Heather and Nicole’s ability to adapt to an experience relatively new to them, and my team was firing on all cylinders. We lost a bit of time when Hayne attempted a puzzle that consisted of tracking many colors. Hayne is colorblind, so this was not an optimal strategy. We completed both rooms with little time to spare. As someone who’s gone to many of these rooms, this was one of the best I’ve been to, and even Matt and Sam who do tons of them mentioned it was a top five place. I highly recommend it if you’re ever in the area. While we were able to do one room faster, we did the other slower, and the only logical tiebreaker was total time in which they beat us by about 10 minutes total by finishing the room we did first at a much faster pace. Matt Nass was awarded the trophy, proudly holding a pile of fake cash in his sweatpants and Bahamas hoodie. Feeling defeated, we wanted to challenge Sam, Matt, and Jacob, also known as Team Panik, to a little team Vintage Cube draft. A fearsome trio that has a ton of team Limited success. My team, Team Tron, has played a single team GP together where we managed to accomplish the incredible feat of cashing without making day two. We were dogs to say the least. Nevertheless, Tom managed to find his form and finish 3-0, backed up by my 2-1 to carry Hayne to a victory. Typing this with Hayne sitting next to me, I told him I just remembered he owes me a snow angel. I plan to get it too. (Hayne here- it was a strategic 0-3 to bring the greater victory to the team) After this we went to sleep as champions. Knowing the time was ending, we spent the last few hours chatting. Paper Magic is back, and things are returning to normal. It’s important to remember the most important part of this whole journey, which is quite literally, the friends we made along the way. To me, this is the single most important thing this game continues to give me. It’s cliché to say things like your results don’t matter, and to be honest, I’ve never felt like that. My results have always mattered to me to some degree, but not because of the glamour and recognition that comes with strong finishes. It’s more about the opportunity to spend time with friends, doing the thing we love, and coming together for a single purpose. While doing well in tournaments and being recognized as a strong player helps me feel better about myself, my friends will always be able to do a better job of that. The reassurance they provide is worth more than any trophy, but the trophy provides something even more meaningful, which is more time with them. I’m so grateful I got this experience and to everyone who came and made it possible. I felt lucky to be able to see my friends again. After this trip, the fire is a little more lit. I was previously unsure if I’d attend the RC. It’s far away, and I have to spend time away from my family. These are big downsides, but spending time with friends is also important, and I’m not ready to give it up. Unless something changes, I’ll see you in San Diego. #95mtg #thebestprices

With the first Pro Tour behind us, and an eye looking at the Regional Championships, I’m taking the week off from playing Magic games. It’s been nice to sit back, relax, and enjoy the game as a spectator. During the Pro Tour, we got some previews of what’s to come in March of the Machine. This set looks unique and interesting so far. Let’s examine some of the already previewed cards. Faeirie Mastermind Fairie Mastermind, the long-awaited World Championship card for Yuta Takahashi, looks awesome. A 2/1 flash flying creature is nothing to write home about, but this card may as well read “draw a card” since it will almost always provide that value in the right context. This card looks excellent for draw-go style play for match-ups like a UW Control mirror, as it threatens to take over the game with its activated ability, which if used during your opponent’s turn basically says you draw two and they draw one. This is by no means a slam dunk, as it’s going to be contextual, but I suspect we’ll see a good amount of this card in Standard barring any huge shake-ups. I can also see this being played in formats like Legacy that are predominantly blue, but its fragility to cards like Lightning Bolt may be problematic. Fairie Mastermind also looks like a slam dunk for EDH, as the extra cards will add up quickly. It’s a great card and a great way to pay homage to the former world champ. Jin-Gitaxias One of the wordiest cards printed in a while, Jin-Gitaxias looks interesting, but I’m not a big fan of cards such as these that are mostly vanilla unless you have seven cards in hand. Generally, if you have seven cards in hand something is going either very well or very poorly. Jin-Gitaxias isn’t solving any of those issues until chapter two when it’s able to bounce a bunch of creatures. However, it doesn’t even hit Phyrexian creatures, which may be fairly common in Standard. While this is the first time we’re seeing a creature flip into a Saga card, kind of the opposite of a Fable of the Mirror Breaker, it’s also the opposite of Fable of the Mirror Breaker on power level. I don’t suspect this card will make many waves. Heliod, the Radiant Dawn This is a super interesting card. At rate, a four mana 4/4 isn’t excellent, but it’s got my attention because it replaces itself by bringing back something like a Fable, a Restoration of Eiganjo, a Wedding Announcement, an Ossification, or any of the other highly played enchantments. Flipping Heliod into a 4/6 that gives all your spells flash is fairly powerful. In fact, you have to sink as few as three mana to flip it, but the fact all of your spells will be constantly reduced is incredibly scary for the opponent. If they so much as dare to draw extra cards at any point, you can empty your hand immediately. This is a card I’ll be looking at closely to make work when it’s in Standard. Yargle and Multani It appears we’ve now reached the team-up portion of MTG where weird legendary creatures join forces and produce weird Magic cards. Yargle and Multani is as vanilla as it gets. A six mana 18/6 is not good enough to see constructed play outside of some weird combos like Fling. Don’t expect to see this card much outside of Limited, but in Limited it will be quite the banger. Omnath, Locus of All Omnath has been completed and is quite an interesting card. It’s hard to evaluate its ability to keep unspent mana very well, but it basically reads as a four mana 4/4 that you lose two life when you cast it, and it draws you an extra card each turn. That’s a pretty solid creature in formats where interaction is few and far between. The fact it doesn’t produce any kind of immediate value is generally problematic, and I suspect, while a sweet and unique design, Omnath, Locus of All, won’t be heavily played. It’s too fragile and doesn’t produce enough immediate value to replace the other four-drops that see heavy play. If we do see this card in action, my guess is it will be in a format like Pioneer in some kind of five colors Bring to Light Niv Mizzet deck and as a one-of. It’s a cool card, but I’m not eager to experiment with it. Thalia and The Gitrog Monster Almost identical to the two cards being mashed together, Thalia, Heretic Cathar and The Gitrog Monster, this card is fairly solid. It’s impossible to deal with in combat, as it has both deathtouch and first strike to win any fight. Thalia and the Gitrog Monster provides little immediate value if facing a removal spell. It does have static abilities of allowing an extra land to be played and tapping your opponent’s non-basics and creatures as they enter, which gives it a good chance to see play in a deck where it fits, but currently I don’t think there’s many of those. Thalia and the Gitrog Monster have another big issue, and that’s competing in the same spot on the mana curve as Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Sheoldred is so good as a four-mana creature that needs to be answered immediately, that there’s often little room in the same colors for cards in this mana slot to compete. As a big Siege Rhino fan, I’d love to see a creature with the same casting cost make a big splash in Standard and beyond again. I think Thalia and the Gitrog Monster is a card we’ll only see in fringe places, but you’ll see a copy of it here and there. Drana and Linvala I’m looking at this like a new and improved Linvala, Keeper of Silence. This is a card you’d love to have access to in a toolbox deck when you’re playing against decks like Elves, but on its own rate is just a little lackluster as a main deck card. This is definitely a card you’ll find as a one-of in those toolbox style decks though, as it’s a strict upgrade for decks that can also produce a black mana in addition to the two white mana from the original Linvala. While this card isn’t incredibly exciting, it has its spots and it’s a card you’ll definitely see in EDH. I’ll be looking to pick up a copy but don’t think I’ll need more than that. Chandra, Hope’s Beacon This card is an absolute banger. I love it. It’s easily my favorite card previewed thus far. Chandra Hope’s Beacon seems incredibly powerful. It does so much on its own. I’m picturing playing this card in an Izzet control deck with cards like Big Score, Cheap Removal, and depending on format, ways to take extra turns to exploit its static ability. A common play pattern with Chandra, Hope’s Beacon will be cast it, plus for mana, cast a removal spell. Don’t have a removal? Cast and -4 to kill two creatures at once. Attrition game and you ran out of cards? +1 find a spell and copy it. This card will quickly bury your opponents and is a game plan in and of itself. I may be a bit off base here, but having this card and Fable in the same format is a scary core to me. I’m excited to see if we can have another great six-mana planeswalker that sees heavy play like back in the days of . I will be surprised if Chandra, Hope’s Beacon isn’t a staple in Standard. Unless the format is Negate heavy, it will certainly find a home since it can catch up from behind, pull way far ahead, and its only real weakness is to counter Magic. I’m excited to play with this card in Standard, and I would even consider adding a copy of this to decks like Izzet Creativity in Pioneer because it’s a powerful play against midrange decks not equipped to immediately answer it. So far March of the Machines looks like a sweet set, and with the team-up cards, I’d get cards like Plaza of Heroes ready, as I think we’ll be seeing even more great Legendary team-ups. Historically, when WotC dives into a new unique and exciting design space, something gets pushed a little too much, so I’m waiting to see if that’s true. Image Copyright: (c) 1995-2020 Wizards of the Coast LLC, All Rights Reserved #MarchoftheMachine #theRadiantDawn #JinGitaxias #Heliod #mtgphyrexia #SunsChampion #Elspeth #95mtg #FaeirieMastermind

This past weekend, we saw the world’s favorite Magic player, Reid Duke, win the Pro Tour. The world is healing. To start things off, the return of the Pro Tour was everything we could want it to be. While the event had less players than typical, the feel of the event was every bit like the Pro Tour. The event felt prestigious and exciting, and the added prize of Secret Lair cards going for large sums on the secondary market juiced the prize pool up enough to make the event more exciting. Hopefully those cards retain their value and collectibility as more are printed since it’s an incredible way to reconcile an unchanged budget for the event prizes. My testing began early. We had the format and a bunch of cards were leaked, so we got to see a huge portion of the Phyrexia: All Will Be One cards a bit earlier. We didn’t identify a whole lot outside of fastlands that would make a huge impact in Pioneer. While Atraxa appealed to me the most, after trying it some, it didn’t fit the mold anywhere. I’m sure there may end up being a playable Atraxa deck at some point, as it’s a powerful card to cheat into play, but it’s not enough against a bunch of decks in the format leaving it in a place where it’s not good enough. Preliminary testing before we got to the house, we all tried a bunch of stock decks, and the lesser-known decks to get an idea of what archetypes we liked. The first deck I tried was Izzet Creativity. This was probably early January, and I rather liked it after playing several leagues with the deck. Through several weeks of trying a new deck every other day or so, Creativity was still a frontrunner for me. I liked its play patterns, as it plays out similarly to Inverter with early disruption into a combo finish, or in some cases, you just win a fair game with Fables, creature lands, or a Shark Typhoon. The Hullbreaker package is what makes the deck versatile enough to compete with anything. Blue decks would normally laugh at a five-mana-sorcery-speed-combo card, but they can’t laugh at an uncounterable creature that ensures they’ll never resolve a spell again. After trying other decks and not liking anything else nearly as much, I decided to play Creativity if the new cards didn’t change anything. I enjoyed the deck, thought it was good enough, and most importantly, thought it was far enough under the radar that it would be a good deck for the tournament. I expected people to have played less against it than all the stuff like Rakdos and Green. As someone new to Pioneer, who didn’t have the experience most people in this event had because they’ve been playing Pioneer this whole time, it was nice to be more familiar with the match-up I was playing than my opponent. This is an understated part of Magic these days. The cards themselves are so complicated and provide so many options that knowing your deck is more important than ever. People who tested the deck on MTGO did pretty well, though eventually, they hit slumps with the deck, which put them off. They found issues with the deck and wanted to find that mythical unicorn deck that is perfect with no issues or problems. Of course, I did too, but as house testing continued, and it became evident that it didn’t exist, people started to turn to Creativity. The questions of “how do you beat X” were being answered, and while the deck had its problems, our data had it ahead of our other decks. While Creativity is far from perfect, it was as good, and in my eyes, better than other stock decks. The Rakdos match-up still causes us fits. Our data said it was slightly favorable since game one is generally very good. However, once they’re set up to interact with a few more discard spells, that combined with awkward draws from Creativity made the match-up close but likely unfavorable. It was close enough that I was willing to risk it in the event. This is a wide-open field with tons of decks, and nothing had favorable match-ups across the board. Without a target on its back, Creativity seemed to have the best match-up spread in those circumstances. It played close games against a lot of the top decks in the field and had some good match-ups like Gruul, Rakdos Sac, Izzet Phoenix, and even Spirits. I’d be happy to sit across from these match-ups. White can be tough the more Extortion Specialist they have to keep Thalia in play, but it’s also a deck I wouldn’t be unhappy to play against if I have a few Rending Volley in my sideboard. As the time to register decks for the event closed in, people on the team became less sure of what they liked and eventually started to warm up to Creativity. Martin even saw this as a sign to further reinforce our decision. Reid Duke was especially interested in Lotus Field and wanted to play it, but with the rise in Gruul’s popularity, a deck we perceived to have a favorable Lotus match-up, he switched to Creativity despite not having played any games. If you thought his run couldn’t get more impressive, you were wrong. Here’s the list I registered for the event. We all had a few small changes, such as changes to the mana base and the sideboard. Moving forward, I don’t think Creativity will be a great choice in the short term. I don’t think it’s powerful enough to take any heat from major archetypes gunning for it. Cards like Ratchet Bomb can give the deck fits, especially out of a deck like Gruul or any other fast linear deck, as it’s reliant on the combo there. You could adjust with some Abrade to counteract. If you want to play the deck, I’d suggest trimming a Shark Typhoon, a Rending Volley, and a Aether Gust for an Abrade and two Leyline of Sanctity for Rakdos in the short term and as the metagame develops keep a closer eye on what interaction you need. I ended up going 2-3 with Creativity, beating Lotus twice while OTP and losing to Enigmatic in the hands of Derrick Davis, a match-up I was unfamiliar with and sideboarded poorly by bringing in Horrors when the Combo and Sharks was the correct approach. In this match-up, the play/draw isn’t as important as others, but I was on the draw. This match-up is good, but I didn’t know it well enough to figure out the intricacies on the fly. Lastly, I lost to Gruul and Mono Green on the draw. While I don’t mind playing against these decks with Creativity, you lose a lot of points with any deck in Pioneer by playing against good Llanowar Elves decks on the draw. My opponents all played very well. A few untimely mulligans and good draws from my opponents eliminated me from participating on day two. So it goes. As far as Limited is concerned, I felt I did a bad job with preparation. Despite only losing one match of my 24 or so on MTGO and an in-house record of 14-4, I didn’t have enough reps. Paper drafts are so time-consuming that you can do three and maybe even four drafts on MTGO in the time it takes to do one live. In addition to that, we had about 10 people in the house, so a couple would always sit out. My laptop wasn’t super functional for playing MTGO while in the testing house. MTGO kept lagging, so I couldn’t play the games. This whole process led me to not playing with a bigger selection of cards than I’m used to these days. While I went 1-2 in draft at the Pro Tour, I wouldn’t blame this. I had a match-up where my cards just didn’t line up against my opponent. My opponent had three very strong rares in White Sun’s Twilight, Blue Sun’s Twilight, and a Kaito that my slower G/W Deck was not prepared to fight against. I  had a couple of good rares myself in White Sun’s Twilight and Argentum Masticore, but in both games, my Masticore got taken by a Blue Sun’s Twilight, and I fell behind early in game two and was able to set up a White Sun’s Twilight with a Plague Nurse in hand to close the game on the following turn, but my opponent had also drawn their White Sun’s Twilight to disrupt my plan. My other loss was a match against Nathan Steuer where my deck was set up well for the match-up outside of his singleton Pestilent Syphoner. His deck was lean with four Blight Bellyrat and a ton of ways to slowly give poison counters, but the recurring hits from a turn two Syphoner in both games one and three were difficult for me. A draw step goes different one way or another and that match loss is a match win. It’s the Pro Tour, and matches will be close. No one is giving games away, especially not the World Champ. All of my opponents seemed to agree that the card quality at our 10-person pod was low, and it’s hard to identify and justify moving into an open color if the card quality is just flat and bad across the board. Coupled with a 10-person pod, that makes it harder since the wheels you see are mostly meaningless as your ninth and tenth picks are generally of higher quality and more telling than your eleventh to fourteenth picks. Moving forward, I’ll likely do two or three house drafts when preparing for Limited, but I’ll do better just jamming a lot on MTGO to identify play patterns and important cards. While I don’t think there’s much I could have done in my seat given the circumstances, I am still a bit mad at myself for not finding time to get at least a dozen more drafts in on MTGO to play with and against some of the cards in the format, though I still don’t know to what extent they’re good. 17Lands.com data could have helped me a bit, and while I did browse over it, this format is especially different in a Bo1 hand-smoothing setting. I loved the feel of the Pro Tour, and I loved getting to see people. Now, after eight years of professional Magic, I am currently not qualified for the Pro Tour but qualified for a couple regional championships. It feels weird having T8d the Pro Tour equivalent just prior to this one and now finding myself unqualified, but I can’t complain. My goal now is to possibly compete in the regional championships and requalify, but I plan to focus a lot more on the online circuits. Paper Magic feels much different to me now. I’m not used to it and somewhat prefer the game online. However, nothing can replace the moments with your friends, eating dinner, talking about this shared passion, and hearing and telling your good and bad beat stories. I don’t want to miss those moments, so to quote Arnold, I’ll be back. Image Copyright: (c) 1995-2020 Wizards of the Coast LLC, All Rights Reserved #mtgprotour #mtgdecklist #mtgcreativity #95mtg #mtgdeck #mtgstrategy

Phyrexia: All Will Be One has arrived. I’m sure many of you went to your local pre-release. While I did not, I did spend a lot of time watching the Limited format, using draft simulators, and trying to get a grasp of what the format is all about. My initial thoughts mirror those of everyone else. The format seems aggressive, and the games are fast paced. We’d expect no less when a mechanic like toxic is introduced, but it leads the format into a weird place. Normally, you evaluate cards by colors in a draft format. The ultimate goal is to reduce the opponent’s life total to 20. In Phyrexia: All Will Be One Limited, additionally we have this mini-game of trying to corrupt the opponent, giving them three poison counters to make our cards better. This means we have to both evaluate cards by color and their roles within the archetype we’re trying to draft. Creatures with toxic are much less valuable in an RG Oil counters deck, and creatures with oil counter synergies are much less valuable in a deck focusing on toxic. Personally, I don’t like this. It creates a bit of variance. You could set yourself up well to get rewarded for drafting a specific archetype like RG Oil and get powerful toxic green cards passed to you as your reward. While I’ve only watched drafts and used the draft simulators, it felt like too many decks could end up an Arnold Palmer of toxic and non-toxic. The same is true with UW’s theme of trying to maximize artifacts. While there is overlap in all of it, you’ll want extremely focused decks in a format that is this quick. There were a lot of cards at common that look strong on rate, such as Contagious Vorrac and Quicksilver Fisher. While both cards are playable, and the Vorrac is even good, it doesn’t appear to be the mythic common some were making it out to be. In the case of the Vorrac, proliferating early is not as valuable as doing it later, and your early creatures not advancing your plan of either setting up oil counter synergies or dealing toxic damage makes it less valuable. You want to stay focused in this format, and cards that are in the Arnold Palmer half-and- half category don’t have as much value. You want to take cards early that are setting up your plans and commit to a plan rather than try to hedge by taking less-focused cards less because you’ll end up with too many cards that aren’t focused. Initially, I’ll have blinders on when picking and sticking to a direction. Because of the proliferate mechanic, creatures with toxic that cost one or two mana are more valuable. The first poison counter will allow your proliferate to add a counter. This means you want to get that first toxic counter on the opponent as fast as possible to gain value from your proliferates and you should also be defending yourself from that first toxic counter more aggressively than the second or fourth. The third counter corrupts you, so you need to be wary, as the third counter is obviously the most detrimental. Formats where cheap creatures are where you want to be typically means removal has less value. Trading down on mana is not ideal, so spending three mana to kill a two-drop is problematic. Cheap removal goes up a bit in value, as winning on the draw is more difficult if you’re just trying to block. While the gameplay has not appeared all that fun to me, I’m reluctant to rate the format as bad because I think it’s a little deeper than it seems. Time, repetitions, and watching the best at the Pro Tour figure out potentially unique strategies will shed light on this format’s capabilities. After watching early access, watching Martin Juza do a few drafts, and drafting on the simulator, if I wasn’t playing the PT, I may just hard pass on this format, as I think Limited is at its most interesting when it’s not just about combat. Limited is a unique space where creature combat is more commonplace and interesting, but it’s more fun when it’s about drafting around a specific strategy that isn’t just attacking. Being able to block efficiently, interact with favorable spells, and play fun build-around strategies is a core component to my favorite Limited formats. My first experiences were all within the MTG Arena. This tends to heavily advantage decks that play lots of one-drops and cheap cards because of the hand smoother. This may make drafts feel more aggressive than they actually are, especially when there are a lot of playable one-drops. Draws don’t break down as often, and curving out is too commonplace. Quick Drafts, where you draft with bots, may paint a different picture of the format than drafting with people who are well practiced. My first time watching Martin Juza do this, I noticed all the cheap toxic creatures go much later than they would in a real draft. This leads to more focused toxic decks, which wasn’t happening in the few drafts I saw people play against other humans. It’s a small sample, but the format may be more disjointed and streamlined as it develops and some key cards will be taken higher. Decks may end up looking worse, and maybe that will enhance the gameplay. This is mostly theory now. We haven’t seen much of the set yet, and it’s too early to write it off. I hope this format ends up being a lot of fun, but I’m a bit skeptical thus far. This will be my last article until after the Pro Tour, where hopefully I can tell stories of my success. Wish me luck! #95mtg #ContagiousVorrac #PhyrexiaAllWillBeOne #QuicksilverFisher

Today I’m going to interview a close friend of mine who’s constantly in the top finishes in our local Magic scene and loves this game in all its different shapes. Talk about you and your Magic-related life. Hello, my name is Biagio Cantone, though for my opponents in Magic Online, I go by Rudokant. I’ve been playing (or rather, replaying) Magic since 2012. I started playing when I was 10-years-old, and I’d play the 72-card decks with whatever you could find in booster packs, modifying them as I went along. I stopped about five or six years later and resumed in 2012. I played all over Italy but mostly in Siena and Perugia, located in the Tuscany and Umbria regions respectively, until 2019. I now play permanently in Catania, which is in Sicily, with some sporadic trips on the peninsula. I have always loved Limited formats, but the first eternal format that fascinated me, and continues to fascinate me, is Modern. I have been playing the format since it was born and have experienced, for better or worse, all its various changes. Despite my love of blue, as a player I have the advantage of being a lover of deckbuilding and variety. I have played virtually all formats and strategies that exist, including pure aggro decks (Zoo, Affinity, Spirits, Humans, Hammer, etc.), midrange (Like Jund and BGx in general, Elementals, and Yorion decks), control strategies (UW, UR Control/Breach, U Tron, and even finisher-less control decks), and combos (Ad Nauseam, Storm, Infect, KCI, Crabvine, Mill, etc.). I have always spent time studying many formats and game approaches. In doing so, I have perfected my way of playing, although I obviously still have a lot, probably too much, to learn. I like to call myself a supple player, however if I don’t have a land that taps for blue mana, then I’d prefer not to leave the house. What is your current favorite Modern deck? And why? Among the various strategies I have played, my preferred are the reactive ones, meaning control and midrange. I don’t like to lose without doing anything or without having a chance to get in the way of my opponents. I like to have choices and be the architect of the situations I find myself in as much as possible. Therefore, in the current Modern my favorite deck is undoubtedly the four-colors Elementals deck with Kaheera as companion. The deck is a true midrange and high draw machine. It exploits the interactions that cards like Risen Reef and Ephemerate have with the evoke mechanic of Modern Horizons 2 new elementals, specifically Solitude, Endurance, Subtlety, and Fury, by turning the resulting disadvantage of discarding cards into a massive card advantage ready to face every adversity. Specifically, the deck has a great match-up against all creature-based decks and decks with slow strategies that don’t put important pressure. As much as this may sound ideal, the deck also has flaws that it doesn’t always overcome even though a four-color sideboard can offer multiple alternatives. It’s difficult to deal with decks that don’t go through the combat phase, such as Valakut, Tron, Ad Nauseam, Belcher, Storm etc., or that chip away at the mana base with cards like Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon, but these are frequent problems for decks with three or more colors. The four-colors elemental deck is a good option for tournaments for many reasons. Its redundancy and versatility provides access to a huge pool of cards to pull from for the sideboard. There also are few bad match-ups in the current metagame, like Storm and Belcher, for example. However, these decks aren’t currently popular in the metagame, but this may change as the format evolves. Phyrexia: All Will Be One will be released soon. Do you think it might change the format? Is there an interesting card that you can’t wait to play with or against? Modern has reached a fairly high power level cap. You can say that it’s a “weak Legacy.” Cards that come from a Standard-legal set are unlikely to have a significant impact in Modern, except for mistakes like Oko, Uro or the companion mechanics. However, I have identified some cards that may find room in Modern decks. Minor Misstep stands out. This almost-Mental Misstep has high potential given that Modern is teeming with annoying one-drops, like Ragavan, or Cascade-decks. I’m sure we’ll often see it in lists! Do you think Modern is currently balanced as a format? Is there anything you would ban or unban? Current Modern is, arguably, the healthiest and most balanced format of all. There are tier decks, but the decks are more solid than they are strong. A tier 2.5 could be a nemesis for some tier 1. You often see rogue or non-tier decks in the various top positions because they are well set-up to beat the various tiers. You can expect anything to happen! The format is balanced because the cards’ power levels have risen, so there is no overpowering some strategies. We could say that it has risen to the point that some cards that were banned because they were unmanageable could now be safely unbanned without causing negative effects to the format. Cards like Splinter Twin, Golgari Grave Troll, Bridge from Below, and Umezawa’s Jitte could be safely unbanned without causing disasters in the format. One of the most terrifying sentences I’ve read in my life was from Wizard of the Coast on January 18, 2016: “In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is now banned.” It was one of the funniest and most skilled decks I’ve ever played. It was the classic control with the little button to win in a turn against low-interactive or particularly clueless opponents. It was a harsh ban but fair at the time. Splinter Twin polarized the format so much because it was still a blue-based combo, so it was particularly solid, with an equally solid plan outside of the combo. It was a Lightning Bolt–Snapcaster Mage–Lightning Bolt control deck. Many decks in that meta couldn’t exist or were forced to play 10 dedicated side cards because they would be overwhelmed by a billion Deceiver Exarch with Haste. Few decks could face it on equal terms. What about Splinter Twin today? In my opinion, it’s perfectly manageable. Compared to 2016, the format has evolved quite a bit and Mother Wizard has given us a thousand answers, especially when it comes to a spell that enchants a creature that has to activate an ability. In today’s Modern, between Solitude, Force of Negation, Force of Vigor, Unholy Heat, Fatal Push, and Urza’s Saga that searches for Pithing Needle and many more, Splinter Twin would be a good choice for tournaments but definitely not oppressive. The bans of Golgari Grave Troll and Bridge from Below were dictated by the format’s historical moment. The first arrived disruptively in a format in which a variety of cards synergistic with the Dredge strategy were gradually being added, such as Cathartic Reunion and Creeping Chill. The deck immediately began to catch on disruptively, and its aggressive starts often proved unmanageable and oppressive. What’s the status of Dredge in 2023? The deck has almost disappeared from the radar. It’s a 2.5/3 tier. Old Troll might bring it back a bit higher, but I doubt it would be as unmanageable as in the past. Bridge From Below, was the sacrificial victim that was immolated at the ban hammer to stop Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, which was conceptually wrong. Wizards tried to balance the unbalanceable by banning an innocent card. The deck absorbed the blow smoothly and came back as solid as before. From the Wizard of the Coast on October 30, 2019: “Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and Faithless Lootingare now banned.” And thank goodness, I should add! The ban was more than deserved for reasons that, to anyone who played the format at the time, are quite glaring. Only during the so-called Eldrazi Winter was there a worse format. Faithless Looting needed to go because it gave exponential potential to all graveyard-based decks, and Hogaak because it was a real misconception. But Bridge from Below? Poor enchantment? What did it do? Oppresses? Really? With all the various new creatures that sacrifice themselves automatically? My belief is it was punished for someone else’s faults and forgotten. With Umezawa’s Jitte, only Hammer Time would currently benefit from it, but it’s not needed. It already has cards like The Reality Chip, Kaldra’s Compleat and the various swords for attrition. Jitte would confer different attrition and allow it to face other creature-based decks more easily, but it probably doesn’t need the card. The fear for these kinds of cards is that they may have a polarizing effect and prevent the emergence of new decks because players may think, “Since I have Jitte in the format, if my creatures have 1 constitution I can’t play them lightly.” Remember it’s still the usual artifact that implies that the equipped creature deals damage in order to connect. For Jitte, I would ask, would it really be played? Let me know in the comments. Let’s close with an evergreen question. What’s your favorite card? To answer this question, I’ll use simple reasoning. Manipulating the deck helps me find answers. If I brainstorm, I can manipulate enough to find an answer. If I brainstorm once per turn for two turns, I’ll be mostly safe coming back from any difficult spot. What if I brainstorm once per turn to stop when I’m full-covered and mill your deck? Thus, without any doubt and without explaining too much, I’ll go with Jace, The Mind Sculptor. Thank you for reading this interview, and I’ll see you next week when Phyrexia: All Will Be One is released! #magiconline #mtg #mtgmodern #95mtg #mtgrudokant

It took a while, but we finally have Dominaria Remastered (DMR) on MTGO. This is a set I’ve been looking forward to drafting, as it hits the sweet spot of when I got really into Magic. I played the original Limited sets where almost all these cards appeared. Dominaria Remastered, for the first time in as long as I can remember, feels like I’m playing old school MTG again. Compared to what you’re used to, DMR is an underpowered set. The power level drops off steeply and quickly. While you have cards like Spiritmonger, Mystic Enforcer, Lightning Rift, and other incredibly powerful uncommons, the power level drops off a cliff. Here are some tips I picked up in my first few drafts. Blue is the best color As is typical in older sets, blue is very strong. In modern-era MTG, creatures are powerful, close games quickly, and many of them have some stapled-on value. This is not the case in DMR. The creatures can be a bit overcosted, and not many of them provide a ton of value. With cards like Deep Analysis, Man-O-War, and Counterspell at common, blue is strong. It also enables threshhold, a key ability in DMR, better than any other color. Drawing extra cards becomes a huge advantage in slower formats, and blue is best at achieving this advantage. A well-kept secret from Urza’s Saga days is that Veiled Serpent is basically a common moat. It’s not just a card to board in against other blue decks. You should be happy to play it on turn three against decks attacking on the ground and using the time it buys you to draw a bunch of cards and close the game out with card advantage. If it’s at all open, I try to move into blue. In addition to being strong itself, it makes so many of the cards outside of blue better. While I don’t have enough data and reps to confirm blue is best, it certainly feels that way and makes sense by looking through the card pool. Don’t be afraid to splash! While the mana fixing isn’t quite what we’re used to in DMR, The Lairs and Terminal Moraine can get the job done. More importantly, if you’re blue, you have time to set up various card draws and cards like Impulse to find that third-color source. Since the format is slow, you can afford to play your most powerful cards if you’re a slower deck. Just don’t be too slow. Respect aggro The few games I’ve lost of the format were against Gruul decks that played a creature every turn of the game. Wild Dogs curving up to Avarax chaining is a real plan. Just because the creatures are a bit worse on rate, that doesn’t mean you can play a bunch of four- and five-drops and miss the early portion of your curve. Respect aggressive decks by playing some cheap creatures that can block or trade well, or be the one applying pressure yourself. Avoid storm unless wide open Storm is a cool archetype in this format. To work, it basically needs all commons and uncommons that are low priority for every other deck like Turnabout and High Tide. The problem is you won’t always get a bunch of the commons you want, especially if others move in on it. I think a good storm deck is probably the highest ceiling deck in the format, but the average storm deck is going to be mediocre if the opponent can disrupt it at all. The best way to end up in storm is by wheeling the key cards like High Tide and Turnabout in your otherwise good blue deck. Storm’s most reliable win condition is Empty the Warrens, which can be thwarted with cards like Slice and Dice and even Sandstorm at common. You need to open your fair share of commons and get lots of multiples for the deck together nicely. However, this won’t happen all that often, especially if someone else is picking up cards speculating on moving in themselves. Think about taking off color cyclers If you’re in red especially, you shouldn’t be taking replacement-level or below commons over an off-color cycler early. You have time to cycle. Valuable uses of a random cycling card include enabling cards like Lightning Rift or filling your yard for threshold. Street Wraith is a great example of a card you’d play for many reasons in a lot of decks in this format. Don’t take that Lightning Reflexes pick five in your red deck just because there’s nothing for you. Take the off-color cycling land or Break Asunder in case you pick up a Lighting Rift. You’ll get enough playables. Just like playing to your outs, you need to draft to them too. You’re probably taking Lairs too late Lairs, the tri-color uncommon lands that make you pick up a land, are perfectly good in this format. The format is slow enough that I like picking them up to speculate in case I find a bomb to splash or even something solid like a Call of the Herd. They functionally are not great, as they replace a land drop, but you still get extra mana that turn, so as long as you can play them after you’ve made some land drops it’s not a punishing drawback. The big bonus of Lairs in this format is that you can pick up cycling lands and then cycle them later when they’re no longer worth being in play. I’ve even used a Lair to pick up a land with Wild Growth for my seventh card for threshold. You should be taking Lairs aggressively over replacement-level creatures and even sideboard cards in many cases, even if they’re double off color. Overall, DMR is a mediocre format. Nostalgia is holding it together for me, and I’ve really enjoyed my first few drafts. However, I don’t think I’ll play much more of this format because sadly, it doesn’t feel that deep. My biggest issue with the set is there’s a huge portion of rares that are not particularly good in Limited and don’t have a home in a deck outside of extreme circumstances. While those Easter eggs will be fun to find, like the storm deck that uses Dark Depths as a win con successfully, or when I get to Sneak Attack that Serra Avatar into play and attack for lethal. Outside of these rare occasions, those cards will go right into sideboards, and we’re just playing a low-power format without much depth. The games are long and slow, and the cards are all similar. While it’s a format I’d recommend to everyone to play at least a few drafts, I don’t think it’s a format I can get deep into because there’s a huge list of cards that are weak, and as players start to learn the cards better, the cool decks won’t come together as often. If you want to try old cards because you didn’t get to play with these cards originally, it will be fun for a bit and give you a taste of what Limited used to be like, or if you’re nostalgic and want to remember Magic as you knew it, DMR does a good job of both of these things. However, if you’re someone who only wants to play relevant, and the best, Limited formats, this is one you can miss. While I’m a little disappointed, I’m happy I won’t be too distracted from focusing on the PT and the release of Phyrexia: All Will Be One. #thebestprices #mtgevents #mtg #dominariaremastered #95mtg #mtglimited

After an unsuccessful Arena Open weekend, I’m getting caught up on Phyrexia Will be One previews. Let’s dig into some of the more exciting cards that caught my eye at first glance. Atraxa, Grand Unifier I absolutely love this card. An instance cube staple, Atraxa is a big vigilance, flying body with lifelink, meaning it needs to be answered, as it’ll be nearly impossible to race. When your deck is constructed correctly, this is close to a Griselbrand that gives you the first activation free of charge. This is an interesting card to cheat into play. It will likely see little play because it doesn’t win the game on the spot, requires you to somewhat construct around it, and doesn’t provide enough onboard advantage to jump through the hoops required to get it into play on the cheap. As it can eat a removal spell and then leave you dead on board as it enters the battlefield, the effect won’t catch you up on board at all. However, in a format like Modern with tons of zero-mana plays, this card gets far more appealing since it can draw into Solitudes, Force of Negations, and other cheap or zero-mana plays to help stabilize. While I love this card, my hunch is it will ultimately flop in Constructed formats, but it’s a sick cube card and worth trying to explore, as it’s powerful and the upside is high. Sword of Forge and Frontier This is an absolute banger of a Sword. I’m happy with the abilities on this one. The triggered ability allows you to get up to two cards worth of card advantage while enabling a second land drop to make that more likely to come to fruition. I think the days of Swords being playable in Constructed outside of decks with Stoneforge Mystic is long behind us. We don’t have mana elves in Standard or Pioneer, and they may only be functional as a tool in a world where there’s a lot of midrange Gruul mirrors. It’s cool of them to complete the cycle, and the abilities on the card are great, but I don’t see Swords having much impact these days. They’re too expensive and vulnerable, as now we have tons of cards like Abrade running around that will really punish spending five mana and being destroyed. Despite whether the card is powerful enough, I like that they did a good job continuing the cycle, and it will be a ton of fun in both Cube and Limited. Ossification The most exciting removal spell I’ve seen thus far, Ossification is a new and improved Chained to the Rocks. It can enchant any basic land and grab planeswalkers. I think Ossification will see quite a bit of play in basically all formats where Swords to Plowshares isn’t legal. While it may be too slow for Modern, it may still see fringe play there. Even as a sorcery card, it’s versatile enough and the downsides are small enough that it’s the best white pure removal spell in formats like Standard and Pioneer. Brutal Cathar and Skyclave Apparition have much higher downsides, Destroy Evil can’t hit small creatures, and Ossification is just as solid as a removal spell. Perhaps its biggest downside is having to play with enough basic lands to support it. A deck like Mono White Humans in Pioneer can easily support it, but with all the lands like Eiganjo, we see a lot less Basic Lands in most decks, so it will be interesting to see if this card gets played in more two- and three-color decks that have many choices on which lands to play. I think this is a staple Standard and Pioneer card moving forward. Skrelv’s Hive Every Bitter Blossom remake I’ve seen has failed to deliver. Skrelv’s Hive seems to be the best new version yet. While it may turn out that the Mite tokens being unable to block proves far too big of an issue, this card has a lot of help in white to pump the tokens, such as Wedding Announcement. Those two cards together on curve seem like a hell of a start from a white deck, especially on the play. Skrelv’s Hive also seems like a strong card with Raffine, so maybe Esper can shine again in Standard. Skrelv’s Hive also produces artifacts that provide value in and of themselves with cards like Urza’s Saga, Michiko’s Reign of Truth, and Cranial Plating. You name it, there are a ton of ways to get value out of artifact tokens. While I’m not sure the best home for the Hive, it’s strong enough to find a home somewhere, even if just as a fringe sideboard card against match-ups not pressuring your life total too much. Minor Misstep A somewhat controversial card, I’m actually pretty low on Minor Misstep. It’s certainly going to find its targets, and in a Modern format where Cascade is being abused, it might just have enough juice to see play since it’s effective in almost all match-ups, making it highly versatile even if low impact. Trading one mana for one mana is fine. We play Lightning Bolt to kill Ragavan, but Lightning Bolt will always kill Ragavan, and on the draw, Minor Misstep is going to look awful. That is my biggest problem with this card. It’s going to be hard to justify a card with a very underwhelming impact on the draw, yet it’s incredibly effective on the play. In many ways I like Mental Misstep better as a design because it helps the player on the draw quite a bit, which is what I wish more Magic cards did. Minor Misstep is going to see a ton of play early, and it may end up sticking around for quite some time. However, ultimately in a format like Modern where Underworld Breach seems to be one of the best, if not the best, cards right now, this card does very little both with and against that. I’m not a fan of the card, but it will definitely see some play. Skrelv’s Defector Mite Mom, is that you? Not quite. This costs a white mana to activate or two life, but how many times does Mother of Runes or Giver of Runes actually get activated in a game? It’s mostly the threat of activation that provides value. Skrelv’s Defector Mite is quite a card. While not as strong as Giver of Runes or Mother of Runes, it has some serious potential. It’s a must-answer with removal, as it will simply shut off all your targeted removal until it itself is dead. It can essentially give a creature unblockable, which is mostly what separates it from a card like Selfless Savior. I’m not super high on this card for a couple of reasons, but I do think it’s solid. First of all, it mostly does play out like a Selfless Savior in that it demands to be answered before the real threat is answered, but it’s also worse than Selfless Savior against sweepers, which are the cards I’m most worried about when flooding the board with a white aggressive deck. It can’t even protect from cards like Brotherhood’s End or damage-based sweepers. One place this card will potentially shine brighter is white aggressive mirrors. Ossification, Brutal Cathar, and Skyclave Apparation all have to go for this little one-drop first, and in general the one-drops aren’t where you want to aim your removal. Skrelv’s Defector Mite is a strong card. While I’m comparing it to Selfless Savior, it’s definitely a bit better since it will protect from all kinds of targeted removal, even those that exile. It has its own issues, such as not helping on defense. This is a slam dunk to see play somewhere and a nice addition to both Standard and Pioneer. Venerated Rotpriest I’m not buying the hype on Venerated Rotpriest. I saw various posts about how Ground Rift was selling out and how this card could bring back Modern Infect. It’s not going to happen, sorry. While the Ground Rift idea is cute and with Underworld Breach still legal, it’s plausible, but I don’t see this as a strong enough cohesive plan, as it requires a lot of doing nothing. Even if it were to come together, it feels like it’s in a spot where it’s either not quite good enough or too good or fast and ends up getting banned fairly quickly. That is very unlikely for what it’s worth, but it still feels like there would be no good outcome. Being able to kill the Rotpriest after a full combo while Storm is on the stack in a format where everyone plays tons of Unholy Heat, Lightning Bolt, Solitude, and everything else makes this archetype seem far too fragile. Venerated Rotpriest’s best chance would be enough toxic support in this set to round out an actual poison deck, but I think it’s just going to be too weak since they’re generally careful with new mechanics these days, at least in Standard. There may be some overlap in sets moving forward. For now, I’m selling on Venerated Rotpriest. Phyrexian Vindicator Phyrexian Obliterator meets Phyrexian Vindicator. Outside of effects like stomp, Phyrexian Vindicator will be a huge problem for some archetypes. It’s impossible to attack through, block, and kill with damage-based removal. Phyrexian Vindicator has some careful templating that makes it much harder to turn into a combo piece unlike Boros Reckoner, which took being indestructible and damage on it to combo off. It’s unable to target itself and prevents the damage, so even with two in play you couldn’t bounce the damage back and forth infinitely to gain infinite life. While I’m sure there are some combos to be had with Phyrexian Vindicator, they’re probably too convoluted to have a real impact in competitive formats. With Skrelv’s Defector Mite also in the set, this card could see some play in a deck like Mono White Midrange in Standard, especially as a sideboard card against decks like Mono Red Aggro. Outside of specifically attacking decks that can’t interact with it at all, I think this card asks too much to shine. While it doesn’t die to damage-based removal, it does die to basically every other form of removal making it a liability. “Dies to Doom Blade” is a running meme, but it’s simply true. Dying to all forms of black-and-white-based removal for no gain at a mana disadvantage is not a good place to be. I’m selling on Vindicator, but it has potential to see some fringe play. Tyrranax Rex Carnage Tyrant was one of the most obnoxious cards to be prevalent in a Standard environment, and Tyrranax Rex is not as good as that thankfully. It has haste and more power and toughness for one additional mana, but the problem is the ward cost is payable and it still dies to cards like Destroy Evil, Infernal Grasp, and Go for the Throat at a mana disadvantage. I’d be stubborn to say this card will never see play, but this will not have the impact that Carnage Tyrant did for a variety of reasons. Being targetable at all is a big one, but also the game isn’t that slow these days, and the critical turns are very early and snowball out of control. Seven-mana spells that don’t completely dominate a game and end them immediately like Alrund’s Epiphany and Emergent Ultimatum won’t have much of an impact. Tyrranax Rex is a miss for me. Capricious Hellraiser Last but not least is one of the cooler dragon designs to date. Capricious Hellraiser might be the most interesting and potentially powerful card previewed yet. Capricious Hellraiser can enter the battlefield as early as turn three in a normal game with cards like Mishra’s Bauble, fetch lands, Manamorphose, and any other way you can cheat on getting cards into the graveyard at almost no cost. The problem I have with this card is the word “random” inserted in the middle of its text making it incredibly hard to exploit. What happens if I randomly exile three lands? No value, just a three mana 4/4 flier? Well, that’s a pretty high floor at least. Where this card gets interesting to me is with cards like Dig Through Time where you can cast it and with the trigger on the stack manipulate your graveyard in a way that you get exactly what you want. Other instant speed Delve cards will work of course. While this card will take a lot of work to get right, this is one of the rare exceptions where the juice is worth the squeeze. It’s still strong if played in fair decks for value. The biggest issue I have with it is that it’s vulnerable to graveyard hate, which is attached to everything these days. This is one of the more fun puzzles, but I like this card and think it has a chance to see some real play, specifically in Modern, but I could see it in Pioneer with Dig Through Time, as well. I’m less excited about this card in Standard, but it could see play there too if the right supporting cast is available. Phyrexia: All Will be One has some real thinkers. There are lots of cards that on their face don’t look objectively powerful like Fable of the Mirror Breaker or Oko, but instead are like a puzzle to solve with a cohesive plan. I’m excited to see what’s left. #Atraxa #95mtg #PhyrexiaWillbeOne #mtgpreviews #GrandUnifier