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This past weekend, we saw Breach dominate the Modern RC. Modern is in a broken place, which was obvious the second they unbanned Mox Opal. Mox Opal was bound to break something and will likely continue to do so. Banning Mox Opal would be an egregious mistake at this point because of the card's high expense and it would ruin consumer confidence. Now that the cat is out of the bag, we shouldn't try to put it back in, so Underworld Breach has to go. Limited, however, has been saved! Aetherdrift Limited went from zero to hero with the inclusion of Alchemy cards. For me, Aetherdrift Limited had a big hill to climb from the start. A set designed around the theme of racing is the antithesis of what I admire in my favorite Limited environments. Racing might be thematic, but it's not my cup of tea if shown in actual gameplay. While I don't want formats to be super slow, I like games' texture to feel somewhat controllable and be more about interacting and setting up synergies. It emulates the power fantasy from your favorite video game. You build your character up so all the pieces come together, and you see the result in the gameplay. When we're just attacking with above-average stat creatures and ending games as quickly as possible, we never fully see all the cool things a set offers. Aetherdrift Limited surprisingly didn't feel too fast. In fact, it had a fairly nice pace. It is interactive, has mana sinks that matter, and plays a vital role in how games play out. Despite this, Aetherdrift missed the mark on synergies coming together in a cohesive matter. Some cards didn't fit any theme, and the mechanics didn't have a ton of overlap. Exhaust and vehicles aren't a cohesive overlap and work poorly together. Exhaust is an awesome mechanic. It adds a powerful one-time use ability on cards at the cost of usually a lot of mana and gives you more options in games. However, when combined with vehicles, it creates these scenarios where you can't spend too much mana that doesn't affect the battlefield. Rather than working together, in many cases, they contradict each other. The same is true with cycling. If your play on turn two is to cycle and on turn three you play a vehicle, then you've spent too much mana with nothing in play that can block or attack. We live in a Magic world where you can't go too long without affecting the battlefield unless you have a massive comeback spell to cast. It's fine if you have a sweeper to follow up or something that puts multiple creatures in play, but these effect types are rares or mythic rares, which you don't have very often, so you can't afford to have your cards working against each other. Since overlapping synergies don't support each other and can work against each other, you can't have bricks in packs or the synergies will end up lackluster. You won't have the redundancy you need to make, say, your UR Discard work, even when your color pair or seat is open. This is largely a reason why green outperforms other colors. Green creatures are so good, and the removal in Run Over is adequate. The power level ends up lower because the synergy rares that are supposed to be focal points end up less powerful than usual, and the core of deep green commons doesn't need any help, but many of your Izzet cards will need help for instance. How did Alchemy fix this? In the original Aetherdrift, you'd draft a color pair like Azorius and would get maybe one gold uncommon and all the commons you want to set up a nice affinity deck, but the payoff wasn't there. With Alchemy, we get to remove a common from the pack and add, in most cases, a rare power-level card. Not only are the payoffs landing in the right seats because people are fighting over a stronger card pool, but the payoffs end up getting there more often because you have a high enough power level in your synergistic decks. You're not often drafting around your first pick, and you can pivot during a draft since your deck can still be strong through the alchemy cards. Vanilla Aetherdrift didn't feel like there was much room to find your lane. If you don't take that one strong payoff early, then it's too late. With what almost amounts to an extra rare per pack now, it makes it easier to navigate the draft without wearing blinders. I noticed a lot of my Twitch community is reluctant to pick up Alchemy because it's garnered a bad name for itself. People are hesitant to change, and Alchemy cards are seen as inorganic because the experience isn't replicated on paper. I embrace Alchemy, as it's a way to change our play experience when our current play becomes stale. Maybe the execution isn't perfect, but in the case of Aetherdrift Limited, I went from almost completely dismissing the format to being excited to open packs. My decks almost always end up fleshed out. If I find the open seat, my decks improve my game plan rather than being a pile of creatures and removal without true synergy. A small thing I noticed is cards like Road Rage, Grim Bauble, and Lightning Strike underperformed. They're still solid cards, but they weren't nearly as high in the pick order as they'd be in a more traditional Limited environment, which has flipped with the addition of Alchemy. Many Alchemy cards are powerful two-drops that have snowball potential, so the value of a cheap removal has gone up. It's not about sticking to the first big threat anymore. You need to properly draft and build your deck to handle more powerful threats, which creates value from solid cards that are closer to filler than first-picks. While the world may be focused on what needs to get banned in Modern, my focus is on enjoying a fresh, new Limited environment. More people should give Alchemy draft a try. It made the set above average and made me love it when I only tolerated it before. Aetherdrift Alchemy is higher powered, but it solved almost all the balancing issues, as you don't feel too far behind drafting a non-green color pair anymore. If you're a Limited lover, you should give it a chance since it's a lot more fun than I expected.

This past weekend we witnessed a dear friend of mine, Matt Nass, hoist the trophy and become our new Pro Tour champion. Matt has wanted this for quite some time, and I couldn't be happier for him. Matt's truly one of the nicest people you'll ever meet and one hell of a Magic player. Matt's weapon of choice? Domain Overlords. I've not played much Standard, but from watching the event, Domain looked to be the best deck. It seemed to have a decisive advantage against midrange decks. While it was slated as an underdog against red, beating decks like red aggro has always been easier than formulating a plan to beat midrange decks. You simply need to buy time, have some life gain, and give yourself the opportunity to live long enough to develop your game plan. I played with various red decks in the past. They're very strong when they draw well, but red aggro decks have a serious issue with flooding out once they face pushback. Prior to this event, I saw multiple people clamoring for a This Town Ain't Big Enough ban, which seemed ridiculous. There are plenty of strategic ways to go over the top or underneath a deck like Pixies, as we saw Domain do often. I expect to see a lot of Domain at the tables in the near future, so if you're playing Standard, make sure you're prepared to play against it. My favorite part of every Pro Tour is watching the Limited portion. This PT, we saw two of the best to ever do it: Javier Dominguez, our reigning world champ, and Ben Stark, one of the best to ever open a booster pack. I learned a lot watching them draft, but not in the way you may think. I would have drafted differently in both of their seats, which is not uncommon for this set, but watching it made me realize this is not a format to hedge your bets. Both players did poorly in their drafts. In retrospect, it's easy to say, "I would have done better," but the best thing you can do is learn from their perceived mistakes and figure out where they went wrong. Javier found his open lane, but he pushed against the grain for too long. As early as pick two, I would have taken an Explosive Getaway that he neglected and embraced my position as a control or midrange deck. Many people have sworn off Getaway, but the card has been nothing but absurd both for and against me. Its win-rate data is low because of its color combination, and it is a card that requires setup. One thing data won't show you in Limited is that proactive cards will have inflated win rates since they require almost no thought to use correctly. I play my over-statted four-drop creature, attack three times, and the game ends. Removal, and especially cards like Explosive Getaway, will have lower win-rate data because they require a game plan and can't win the game on their own. It requires you to use all your other cards correctly, whether that is holding off on either casting removal or making a trade, or by letting yourself fall behind early. The plays with a card like Getaway aren't scripted. There's nuance to how each game will play out, and it's up to you to solve that puzzle. Good players can leverage that a lot better. Regardless, both players ended up in the correct lane. I just would have ended up embracing what was coming rather than pushing back. If I've learned anything in this format, it's that synergistic decks don't come together often, and you're mostly trying to piece together a midrange soup deck. Basically, you're drafting what looks like a sealed deck. I probably shouldn't write about certain allegations having not seen them myself, but you can't go on Magic Twitter right now and not see people accusing various players with deep runs of making some beneficial mistakes. Whether these mistakes were intentional or not is up to the judge and their opponents to decide. I personally haven't seen anything too out of the ordinary. That said, it's up to the judges to enforce these things. I can say that judges are more standoffish than they have been in the past. In my last paper PT Top 8, I was pressured to play faster on multiple occasions. Every turn I was involved in was more complicated than what my friend Matt had in front of him on the final turn of the tournament. We've said it for years, but there needs to be consistent guidelines in slow play. I am not calling out Matt since he was rightfully exhausted after a long day in the office, was playing the last game to become PT champion, and didn't want to mess up the math. I'm fine with and encourage that leniency. However, it needs to be consistently addressed. Every time I watch my friends battle at the Pro Tour, it gives me a little bit of the fire. It makes me happy that we have so many online competitive outlets with stakes these days. While the Pro Tour itself is too much of a time commitment for me at the moment, we now have more ways than ever to play Magic at home. I'm happy for Matt. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy or better counter. This weekend we have the Arena Open. While I have a busy weekend planned, including celebrating my 42nd birthday, I will try to at least fire a bullet or two. I'll see you at the tables.

Aetherdrift Limited has been out for a decent amount of time. While I'm enjoying the set more than I thought I would, the format has some issues. The recipe for success is not a widely kept secret. Green seems to be outperforming every other color. Outside of green, the colors are well-balanced. I would put white in last place, though it's not unviable by any means. Let's get into why green is so dominant. The worst green cards in the set are a pair of commons, Silken Strength and Alacrian Jaguar . Alacrian Jaguar is a playable but unexciting five-drop. I'm not ashamed to play it in the absence of other top-end, but it's just passable. Every other green card in the set either has its uses or is actively good. This also includes gold cards. Top-to-bottom green is super deep. On top of that, green arguably has the best removal spell in the format at common, Run Over . Run Over paired with any number of vehicles or Venomsac Lagac is a one-mana removal spell. It can be risky using punch cards, but it's more than made up for with Run Over's efficiency. Green also has the best removal. Creatures are the real issue with balancing green. It's not new that green has the most powerful creatures. In fact, a feature of green is the above-curve creatures that can attack and block well. The issue is that green creatures can be raced with evasion, especially with efficient interaction to back it up, and green tends to have weak interaction. There are a lot of green creatures with reach in Aetherdrift. Migrating Ketradon and Hazard of the Dunes , two of green's best common creatures, have big bodies with reach to boot. Both of these creatures are also bigger than most of the creatures in the format. It's hard to get into combat against a green deck once a single copy of these two cards sticks. Hazard of the Dunes has trample and reach, and it outgrows nearly every creature in the format with its exhaust ability. It can literally do it all. If I were balancing the format, I'd remove one of the two abilities, likely reach, and see how things played out. Removing reach from this one common could better balance the format. Hazard of the Dunes does a lot of heavy lifting and helps carry green into the territory of dominance. Green has additional reach creatures at all rarities, and you can main deck Broken Wings reliably in this format, as there's an abundance of artifacts in every color. Every single green rare is good, and some are great. This includes gold cards. In a world where rares are more available thanks to a new booster pack structure, cutting off green is rewarding because it's almost always good to see a green rare. It's probably not news to you, but games in this Limited format often go long. There's a lot of resource exchanging and board stalls, so it's important that you have ways to spend mana later in the game. Because of the exhaust mechanic, green has quite a few ways to spend mana. In long games, mana sinks aren't the only deciding factor in how a game is going to end. The depth of your cards will help decide too, right? If you have a few bad underrate cards and you get to the bottom of your deck, then you've seen those cards. If they aren't lining up properly, you'll get overpowered. Green's depth allows it to win those longer games because even the two-drops at common play well in the mid and late game, specifically Beastrider Vanguard and Venomsac Lagac. Green's creatures play offense and defense effectively, allowing green to win fast or prolonged games. So far there have been a few ways to approach beating green decks, but it's not easy. The most reliable way I've been beating green is by decking them, otherwise known as good old-fashioned mill. Aether Syphon is my pick for the sleeper card of the format. I'm happy to first pick it in an otherwise weak pack and hopefully find another copy or a copy of Riverchurn Monument , which is one of the set's best cards, yet I get it late in pack one sometimes. I love to draft around Aether Syphon with a lot of cheap evasive creatures like Skystreak Engineer to get to max speed and slowly grind out the opponent. Sweepers is another way I've been losing with, and am able to beat, green. Green needs to play to the board, which is what it does best. In doing so, they're usually susceptible to the sweepers of the format. Cards like Spectacular Pileup and even Explosive Getaway can give green issues. These are rares, but rares are more common these days thanks to play boosters. Aetherdrift Limited is still fun, but I'm curious to see how it is at the Pro Tour, in pod. It's a unique balance situation where we have a strong color but a reasonable balance outside of that. I love blue, black, and red when I can get these colors. I'm lukewarm on white, but it can come together. I need more time to diagnose how to approach this format in best-of-three, as all my play has been best-of-one. I suspect things will change a little, but mana sinks will likely become more important. I'll work more on solving Aetherdrift Limited this week, so hopefully, next week, I can go over some draft coverage from the Pro Tour and give my thoughts on the approach of the broadcasted drafters. I can't wait to get into it. See you then!

Aetherdrift is officially here! I finally have my first drafts under my belt, and I've been pleasantly surprised by the format. My initial reaction was that it would likely be too fast, punishing, and, as far as flavor is concerned, boring. Combat slugfests lead to a monotone design where cards don't work together and synergies never truly come together. Make no mistake, Aetherdrift comes across as a fast, tempo-oriented format, but there's still a heavy incentive to focus on the "thing" you're doing. You still want your cards to help each other, and you still need to follow strong fundamentals. Vehicles require you to play combat exceptionally well. You need to know when to block and when to press your advantage. Often, the best play is to trade off your vehicle as soon as possible to unlock the creature that you need to crew it. Interaction is important, especially cheap interaction. Cards like Bounce Off and Road Rage are premium because one-mana interaction can be used to break up your opponent's fast starts or press your tempo advantage on the play. They're important and versatile cards. Vehicles, much like equipment or auras, can be stranded without ways to utilize them. For this purpose, it's important to contextualize the board and how the game is likely to play out. If your opponent is short on creatures and overloaded with vehicles, killing that random 2/2 isn't just killing a 2/2, it's likely shutting down a larger creature because the opponent has vehicles left outside of combat on each turn. It feels like there's a lot of value to be gained in the games more so than in drafts. The signpost uncommons, especially the gold uncommons, are potent within their archetypes. Picking up a late gold uncommon is a strong indication that the archetype is open and it's almost always worth jumping in if you can manage. I don't recall being this impressed with so many uncommons so early. Haunt the Network, Emabalmed Ascendant, and Veteran Beastrider are all examples of cards that vastly outperform a normal signpost gold card. The set is new, so I've only drafted one day. Here are a couple of my first decks. This Dimir Affinity deck was my first deck. I was skeptical of the finished product, but I got a trophy in my first draft. Haunt the Network hard-carried in combination with lots of early damage from Diversion Units. Cheap fliers have more value in this set than usual because of the max speed mechanics. This was my best deck but not my best record. I only managed a 4-3 record with this masterpiece. One of my losses was when I disconnected in the middle of turn 2 before I could play my land and came back to the opponent with three lands and two creatures in play, so I just scooped. Loot is strong, and I'd take it over any non-rare p1p1. There's some merit to taking other single-color rares over it, but in general, just slam Loot. I like this archetype as long as red remains underdrafted, which is what it feels like at the moment, though it's early. I heard rumblings of red being a weak color, but it seems fine and potentially very good. The biggest thing I learned from drafting this archetype is that you want strong top-end to close out with your early game, but both are important. This is another Izzet with a splash deck that was almost as good as the last and performed even better. Transmit Mage is alongside some strong tutor targets in Cryptcaller Chariot and Possession Engine. The Engine was my best card outside of maybe Thopter Fabricator, but Cryptcaller never got to impact games. I only drew it deep into games with an empty hand. It seems like it would be strong to play on curve, but it does have that issue. Bounce Off was impressive in this deck, as I had a lot of ways to pick up extra cards, and the tempo play was more valuable when I could recover the lost cards while having the ability to overpower the opponent later. Izzet was open today, and I brought the boom with the Boommobile on multiple occasions, but overall the deck was not great. This deck lacked ways to pick up extra cards and needed to draw a nice mix of lands and spells while also curving out nicely. I won about half my games with this deck. In almost every game, I was struggling to stay alive and trying to find ways to chip in my last few points of damage with a Magmakin Artillerist or a top-decked Lightning Strike. I didn't learn much from this draft, seeing that it was the third time I drafted Izzet on my first day of drafting. However, I did learn not to forget that my Adrenaline Jockey is a symmetrical ability while casting a Road Rage on my opponent's turn at four life. I'll blast more Aetherdrafts for the next few weeks. As a Limited-focused player, I'll be sure to clue you in on the tips and tricks I pick up along the way. So far I'm enjoying the format far more than I thought I would, which is a relief because I thought I was going to struggle to fire up the queue with this format.

We finally have the full list of Aetherdrift, and there's quite a bit to look through. This week, I'll finish my analysis of some cards that stand out, and we will move on to Limited next week. A few cards caught my attention in the final rollout. Let's take a look. Spectacular Pileup I usually don't bother reviewing the latest wrath effect, as they're generally tame, boring, and not that good in a modern Magic setting. However, Spectacular Pileup changes how these things function. One of the major upsides of vehicles was how they were insulated from sweeper effects and, in some cases, targeted removal until you were prepared to activate them with the ability to defend them with a protection spell. Spectacular Pileup destroys this advantage. It also has cycling, so you can put it in your deck without fear of drawing a dead card. While there's no evidence Spectacular Pileup will see much play, it will in a world where vehicles are successfully integrated into a Standard setting. For instance, would Esika's Chariot have had nearly as big an impact if Spectacular Pileup was available? We don't know for sure, but now we have a tool to use if that type of situation were to arise again. Sunfall is probably the best five-mana wrath effect we've seen. It's still legal, so it would be hard to see that falling out of favor in decks that want that effect, but that could change in a world where removing vehicles matters. It's nice to have access to a tool like this, even if it's not a Standard staple. Salvation Engine Salvation Engine is an interesting card. It's a massive vehicle with a demanding crew cost, but the ability to put additional artifacts in play, including other copies of itself, is quite powerful. I've seen this mentioned in the same breath as Tempered Steel. We don't have the same type of support in Standard at the moment, and Magic is in a place where a Tempered Steel-type deck probably wouldn't pass the bar. It's possible over the next couple of years that we end up in a situation where a card like Salvation Engine can make a massive impact. For now, Salvation Engine is too clunky and doesn't have enough support. It has potential in a perfect storm situation, but I'll leave it on my wait-and-see list. Radiant Lotus People were clamoring for ways to break this six-mana artifact. As far as I know, it likely won't happen. Radiant Lotus is too expensive. While there are various ways to cheat it into play, it requires a lot of other cards to be functional. We need artifacts in play and a payoff while dodging interaction. The ceiling for a card like this is incredibly high in a solitaire-style game. In a game with heavy interaction, Radiant Lotus is likely to only see play in a more casual setting. There's a world where enough artifacts are printed that there's a cohesive plan for Radiant Lotus, but in any of those worlds, I still see the type of interaction we have available in Standard and beyond to keep anything like that in check. Radiant Lotus is a miss for me competitively. I'm sure it will be a fun card to build around and play with in a more casual setting. Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer I'm struggling with this version of Daretti. It's currently my favorite or second favorite "character" in MTG, so I don't know if I'm being biased, but Daretti looks like it could end up being powerful. Trash for Treasure on a stick has some serious potential. While the graveyard has become easy to interact with in modern Magic, Daretti can cheat a massive artifact into play from the graveyard, and it's a hard-hitting threat. The obvious first possibility is with Valor's Flagship where you can cycle it and put it into play on turn 5 with Daretti and give you a 7-power body to boot. We even have a mana rock with cards like The Iren Crag to ramp out a start like this. I'm sure there are more creative ways to utilize Daretti, but Daretti pops out as a card that could be worth building around. As the Standard format grows, it will only have more potential. I'm excited to see if Daretti has a shot at seeing competitive play, and my hunch is it will happen. Repurposing Bay It's easy to gloss over Repurposing Bay as another Birthing Pod reprint, but it has potential. Repurposing Bay's activation cost is the most prohibitive part of the card, but Repurposing Bay has one thing Pod doesn't, which is redundancy protection. An additional copy of Bay can be sacrificed to move up the ladder. Because of that, you can do things like sacrifice an Ichor Wellspring to find a second copy, then sac the original copy to get a four-drop. Chains like this could produce some kind of powerful combo or loop. While I'm certainly not Matt Nass, I'm sure the Denver boys will be cooking with this one. While Repurposing Bay is likely not a Standard card, I could see it having an impact on formats like Pioneer or, potentially, Modern. I'm intrigued by this, and while I'm not a Modern buff these days, I'm interested to see what people cook up with Repurposing Bay given Birthing Pod's track record and the abundance of broken artifact support you get these days. Cryptcaller Chariot Cryptcaller Chariot hasn't gotten a lot of buzz, but it looks interesting as a potential sleeper. While it's designed to go with cycling in the set itself, looking into a format like Pioneer, we have ways to trigger the Chariot, including cycling, channeling, Blood Tokens, Fable of the Mirror breaker, and the list continues. It's an outside shot, but Cryptcaller Chariot is worth a try in a variety of formats to generate value while using game mechanics we were already using in decks like Rakdos Midrange. The fact that Cryptcaller Chariot is four mana is the only thing holding it back, since it seems like a powerful engine in older formats and in interactive archetypes. I have my eye on Cryptcaller Chariot as a sleeper pick for Pioneer and potentially Standard. Overall, I'm underwhelmed by Aetherdrift. The vehicle is one of my all-time least favorite mechanics because it tends to impact Limited where it becomes hard to block when you're forced to block an oversized vehicle on the draw or you cast a vehicle you can no longer block, so the normal patterns of Limited don't hold up. Regardless, I'm excited to see how and if Aetherdrift will have a major impact on Standard and curious to see if my opinion about vehicles will change after playing with them in this set in Limited. Next week, I will move on to a Limited review of this set. Perhaps I'll start digging a little deeper into Limited Archetype analysis over the next few weeks. We'll have to see, but I'm excited to get started.

Last week, we took our first look at Aetherdrift cards and focused on mechanics. Now, we'll take a closer look at what Aetherdrift has in store for us. Let's start those engines! (Truly sorry, had to get it out of my system.) Chandra, Spark Hunter Let's start with Chandra, a unique vehicle-focused planeswalker. Within the confines of the format, Chandra looks great because Aetherdrift is extremely vehicle-dense, however, when we take into account larger-than-usual Standard formats, it looks like a massive miss for Standard playability. Chandra's 0 ability produces a mediocre vehicle. Because it's a vehicle and not a creature, it can't immediately block to protect Chandra without another vehicle in play. I would have liked to see Chandra's triggered ability keep the vehicle a creature until the next turn, so you had the ability to protect Chandra with said vehicle. As designed, this feels like a card that will be relatively playable in Limited and perhaps a cool build-around for a format like Commander, but in Standard, you will lose so many sets of cards if your deck is focused enough on vehicles where Chandra could be good. Chandra feels like a big miss, which is OK, but I wouldn't get too excited about her prospects in any format at the moment. The Last Ride The Last Ride is obviously a vehicle spinoff of Death's Shadow. I suspect The Last Ride will also be the first ride with this card because it doesn't seem to fit anywhere. Most of the value in this card will be its ability to turn the corner out of nowhere or play good defense when your life total is low. Three mana is a lot for the draw effect. I don't see a home for this, as it won't do anything a majority of the game and it will have been sitting in play long enough for the opponent to game plan around when it can attack. I could see The Last Ride having an impact in Limited, especially if the format is short on mana sinks. Outside of that, I don't see it having a home. It's not a build-around like Death's Shadow since it requires reducing your life total incredibly low and asks you to crew it. I don't have high expectations for The Last Ride, which I say as a massive Death's Shadow enjoyer. Marauding Mako Maraudin Mako is one of, if not the , best card in the set. This is a one-mana card that works well in so many red archetypes, such as Blood Tokens, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, any Faithless Looting deck, and the list goes on. Maybe Hollow One will have a resurgence with Marauding Mako in the mix? Mako is a one-drop that will scale well into the game, and it still cycles if you draw copies that don't have an impact in the middle of the game. This one-drop will demand an answer immediately in the right deck, allowing for two-, three-, and four-drops to get into the mix unscathed. Marauding Mako is sure to be played somewhere, and I'm excited to pick up a Constructed deck and try it out. Count on Luck Count on Luck is a nice upgrade to the Outpost Siege effects in past Mono Red decks. Four mana was too much, and historically, players would often sideboard an additional land when bringing these effects into their decks because they were usually too clunky. Magic has sped up since those days, and now we get a cost-reduced version that I suspect will see play out of the sideboards of Mono Red decks in grindier match-ups. Count on Luck isn't anything new. It's just a new, more restricted mana cost, and it will likely see some niche play at the least. It's a solid addition since the Outpost Siege effects have mostly fallen out of favor. At a more competitive cost, we may get to see Count on Luck bring back raw card advantage for Mono Red players. Transit Mage I'm only highlighting Transit Mage because it completes the cycle of Trinket Mage effects. Transit Mage seems to hit a sweet spot of mana costs for a lot of cards people would sometimes Fabricate for. We've had cards like KCI, Aetherworks Marvel, Paradox Engine, and others covered by this Mage, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Transit Mage as a piece in some artifact combo deck that wants a piece like this but can't take a turn off to tutor for it. The 2/2 body may provide enough breathing room to get your engine going! It's a cool card, as I always love seeing a many-years-long cycle built on and potentially finished. Kolodin, Triumph Caster Kolodin, Triumph Caster looks excellent as a build-around. A creature that can essentially saddle every saddle and crew every vehicle is a real build-around piece. I could imagine a deck with Kolodin and other saddle creatures able to crew vehicles, so they aren't left stranded if Kolodin dies. Kolodin has an efficient enough body that this could be a possibility and perhaps even make Chandra a potential player. Fundamentally, vehicle decks seem like they can't be efficient enough to compete, as the base of the deck relies on having creatures like Kolodin in play. When one piece of the house of cards falls, the entire thing may collapse on itself. Vehicles won't function without creatures, and the creatures will mostly be too watered down without high-powered vehicles. This will often leave you in a position where if someone interacts with one single piece of removal, you end up getting another card stranded for a turn or multiple turns. Kolodin helps with some explosive potential, but even with Kolodin and Chandra, the vehicles aren't powerful enough to make these cards competitive in Standard. Kolodin seems like an excellent commander if you want to build a vehicle deck since you'll always have access to an essential piece. Outside of that, and I hope I'm wrong, I suspect Standard will remain midrange-soup decks for some time, and cool mechanics will often be left on the wayside because sets are one and done with little additional building on any one set's core mechanics. Afterburner Expert Afterburner Expert is a potentially powerful card if you're able to self-mill well enough and have a few support exhaust cards. A 4/2 for three isn't a great rate, but not much blocking goes on in Constructed, so it's serviceable if you can exploit the ability for it to return. Afterburner Expert in multiples will result in a potential chain of them bouncing each other back and forth. While this is clunky, it's possible there could be something in a deck with enough self-mill and interaction. Because exhaust is an instant ability and Afterburner Expert comes into play untapped, you can bring these back into play during the opponent's turn to block with them. This will slow the game down and allow you to continue to build a potential army of experts. I suspect Afterburner Expert is asking too much for what it provides, but it's interesting enough to think about and discuss. Afterburner Expert is a potential sleeper. Mulling over what I've seen of green cards, there's not much I'm too excited about, so green mages may have to work with what we have. Marketback Walker Last but not least this week we have Marketback Walker. Marketback Walker is one of my favorite cards previewed thus far. While I don't think it's in the same category as Walking Ballista or Hangarback Walker where it's going to see play across the board, it may end up in more decks than expected because of its flexibility. What most excites me about Marketback Walker is how well it works with a card like Arcbound Ravager. I could envision an Affinity deck with our newly returned Mox Opals where we can churn through the deck by turning every artifact into another counter to put on the walker and essentially drawing through the deck. We throw a Hardened Scales on top of that, and it feels like we can draw the entire deck in the first few turns of the game. Marketback Walker is ripe for exploitation. I'm certain we'll see players trying to put these pieces together, as there are numerous ways to dump counters onto it, sacrifice it, and keep a chain going. As I'm finishing up this review, we have about two-thirds of the set previewed. I'm not that impressed, but there are a few cards I'm excited about getting my hands on, so we'll have to see what transpires as the set gets fully spoiled. I don't think I'll enjoy this Limited set much because I enjoy formats where blocking is a reasonable venture. Much less of that happens in formats with vehicles. I'd expect games to end quickly in this format, but that's something that we'll see and talk about later. I'll see you next week, likely reviewing more Aetherdrift. See you then.

It's that time again. Spoiler season is back in full effect, and this time we get to look at Aetherdrift. I never thought I'd see MTG and Nascar intersect, but here we are. Let's take a quick look at some of the previewed cards and mechanics, both old and new. The Aetherspark Right out the gate, let's look at a new concept: Planeswalker Equipment. This card is extremely interesting and, in some cases, very powerful. For example, let's say you can play The Aetherspark and activate its +1 ability on a four-power creature. That creature gets a counter, connects for five, and now The Aetherspark has 10 counters. Additionally, it's unable to be attacked, so not only will you have to kill the creature equipped to attack The Aetherspark, but you'll have to have a battlefield presence as well. After the connect for five, The Aetherspark will conveniently have 10 counters on it, allowing you to cash it in for 10 mana. Combined with mana sinks or whatever else, this could be game over. That's the best case. The worst case is the creature you try to equip eats removal, and your Aetherspark gets put out by a creature or two on the opponent's battlefield. Unfortunately, I think this will be the most likely scenario, and The Aetherspark will get knocked out far more times than its true purpose is met. While it's an interesting and innovative design, I think this will go down in history as the first Equipment Planeswalker and not much more than that. Hazoret, Godseeker A new version of Hazoret dropped, and with it, another new mechanic called Start your engines! Start your engines! is an interesting, easy mechanic to understand, but it feels awfully similar to the Ring Tempts or Dungeon mechanic. It works like this: you play a card with Start your engines! You get a speed counter and an additional counter, one per turn, if you're able to damage your opponent during each of your turns. The max speed is 4. Once you hit max speed, as you can see with Hazoret, you unlock the card's full potential and turn it into a two-mana 5/3 indestructible haste creature. As-is, Hazoret looks weak. It's best suited in a low-curve aggro deck that can damage the opponent repeatedly and consistently. While it's self-enabling because it can make creatures unblockable, the card is too slow and clunky for the types of decks it would shine in. I don't think Hazoret has what it takes to see Constructed play, but there's a chance the indestructible body finds its way as a one-of in aggressive low-curve decks that want a two-mana indestructible threat. I could see it happening in something like a Burn deck post-board in specific circumstances where they need a recurring source of damage or something to that effect. In general though, this looks to be far from a staple Mythic. I don't love the mechanic, but I'll have to play with it a bit to see how I feel. Loot, the Pathfinder Loot brings us yet another new mechanic, Exhaust, which I like quite a bit. Exhaust is an activated ability you can only activate once. With Loot, we get something of a new Dark Ritual but any color mana, an Ancestral Recall, and a Lightning Bolt. Loot looks powerful. While it's not so good that you need to build around it, if there's already a Temur deck that wants a top-end threat, Loot can fill that role nicely. At six mana, you slam Loot, attack for four, and hold up a Simic dual for example, which can then be used to either draw three cards in the end step or hold up three mana for a potential piece of interaction. Loot is versatile. This card looks good even at five mana. All cards at this mana cost have to do a lot to see play, but Loot looks strong enough to cross that horizon. Loot is my favorite card so far in the set, but that's probably because I'm a Boomer who had a lot of fun casting Ancestral Recalls and activating Arcanis the Omnipotent. Basri, Tomorrow's Champion Basri, Tomorrow's Champion is next in the long line of power crept Savannah Lions. Basri feels a lot like Usher of the Fallen but a little better. He brings back the mechanic Exert, which wasn't my favorite mechanic at the time, but in retrospect, it was fun to play with since it gave the player some choices on how to use their creature rather than making automatic plays with them. Basri can attack for two, or when the opponent can mount defenses, and continue producing value-creating Cat tokens. In addition, Basri, as a legendary creature, has a cycling ability to protect the tokens it creates. However, a redundant copy doesn't protect itself. There's not much to say about Basri other than it is a role player. I'm sure we'll see it in decks in some capacity for the foreseeable future because it's a legendary Savanah Lions. Basri can be put in mono-white aggro decks, much like you'd see a copy of Kytheon, or in decks trying to exploit Mox Amber. Regardless, Basri will see some play, but it's nothing groundbreaking, just a solid one-drop. Oildeep Gearhulk It looks as if we have a new cycle of Gearhulks coming to MTG. While these have varied mana costs, they don't seem that strong yet. Let's look at Oildeep Gearhulk. Oildeep Gearhulk is only four mana, but specifically, two pips of both blue and back mana make it difficult to cast. It has a similar ability to Vendilion Clique, however rather than putting the card on the bottom of the deck, the chosen card is discarded, meaning it can also be used as a discard outlet in a reanimation-style deck with a self-target while having the ability to interact with the opponent's hand in a meaningful way. Oildeep Gearhulk's lifelink and ward 1 give it just enough to maybe see some play. Otherwise, it seems weak. Lifelink on a large body, specifically in this color pair, may give it enough utility to combat aggressive decks since Dimir is often low on life gain. It's possible I'm underestimating how valuable the ability to protect itself is, as you can force your opponent to discard a removal spell they may be holding up. Still, I'm low on Oildeep Gearhulk at the moment. Gearhulks are fun to play with, and I suspect this cycle will be no different. The one word I'd use to describe Aetherdrift so far is interesting. The mechanics don't appeal to me, but I'm hoping they're more fun in practice than on paper. I'm curious about the set's play patterns and overall power level, as there are tons of cards with lots of words already, but none of them have popped yet. I'm sure there are a few sleepers, and next week we'll dig deeper to see if we can find any diamonds in the rough. See you then.

This past weekend I played the Arena Open. This time, the Open was Pioneer Masters Limited, a scarcely played format in the community. Pioneer Masters' main focus was to get Pioneer cards onto Arena while providing a fresher take on them in Limited. The format itself is not great, but given the tools available it was fairly well done for a set meant to accomplish the goal of repurposing old cards. I usually don't do postmortems about events, especially an event where I didn't put much effort into it, but I've been thinking a lot about a specific pick I made, exactly what went into my choice, and if I would change it in retrospect. First, I managed to make day two on my first bullet, and I was only going to play one or two bullets max, as the format was not designed for sealed, and as far as I know, this was the only way to play Pioneer Masters sealed. I felt the format would be all midrange soup gates decks, and I didn't want to slog through in a format I didn't feel entirely comfortable with and, frankly, only somewhat enjoy. Here's a picture of my sealed deck. As you can see, I got lucky with a fast-paced aggro deck that could quickly close the door on slower decks. That's what happened until I got to the last few rounds where I played against other aggro decks. As for my first draft, I noticed that like other sets, cards weren't flowing around the table like they would in a more open environment like a normal Arena draft. My opponents played conventional two-color decks, no splashes, and mostly midrange in nature. No one had overpowered gates decks or an abundance of high-powered rares. I ended up with this normal GW deck where I enjoyed the challenge of building, as the last few cards changed match to match based on not much other than pure instinct. For instance, I noticed in my first game that I should play my Rogue's Passage despite it being awkward on my mana because my deck was prone to flooding out and capable of a good early start being thwarted by opponents' large creatures. I lost my first match to a Hornet's Nest, but I won the next three to advance to the second draft. My second draft was uneventful. I lost both my games, mulling into one-landers on the draw with hands that would have functioned with two lands, but I failed to draw the correctly-colored land or any land in general. My opponent also played 0-1 spells during the game they lost when I was on the play. Here's my third deck and the source of my frustration from the event. I had never drafted this archetype before. I got pushed into it by my first draft pick. I did not take a gold card, I took Ultimate Price. After Ultimate Price, I took a Jhessian Thief in a weak pack. In pick three, I got passed a pack with Lotleth Troll, Nyx Weaver, and Dreg Mangler for notable Golgari cards. I took the troll and said to myself I'll likely wheel one of these Golgari cards, and if so, that's probably my lane. I wheeled both of those Golgari cards, took the Nyx Weaver, and knew I was supposed to be in that lane. Ultimately, I think I made the right choice pack 1 pick 1, even in retrospect, but still I wonder. The alternative choice to Ultimate Price was Thassa, God of the Sea. I don't regret my choice, but I keep thinking about why I made that choice. Traditionally, I've been a risky drafter. I tend to take chances on powerful cards and try to make them work the best I can. It's why I fell in love with Limited Magic, and frankly, a big reason I'm still playing this game after 25 or more years. Thassa requires a firm commitment. It wants most of the cards in your deck to be blue. It's a single blue pip on the card, but it generally wants you to play something like 13 blue sources. That's the kind of blue deck you're potentially committing to with Thassa. Many drafters don't understand this, and even to this day in my stream, they'll see me drafting a two-color deck on stream and ask why I didn't speculate on a card like Thassa pick seven. Some cards require more picks to be functional. You don't want to speculate on those types of cards, not because they don't work out, but because they carry a large risk of ruin. This is why I didn't take Thassa. It's not that speculating on Thassa is bad, quite the contrary. It's a powerful card with a high ceiling in the right deck, but to get to that point, you need to spend a lot of picks. Many of those picks make it nearly impossible to pivot. Once you have Thassa in your pile, you're making a firm commitment that you're going to take just blue cards for the foreseeable future. There are other examples that are unrelated to devotion. To speculate on a card, you need to completely understand what you're getting yourself into, as it's not just wasting one pick. It's potentially wasting lots of picks or even fully wrecking your draft. Speculating on splashable cards is more justifiable. Generally, when I speculate on a gold card like Dinrova Horror, the only thing I need to go well is picking up a couple of pieces of fixing. It's a six-mana spell that requires one mana of another color, so I can play it off of a single guildgate, an Evolving Wilds, and a basic land of the splash color. It's harder to full-color pivot, especially for a card that has more than one pip. Let's say in pack two you open an Archangel of Thune, and you firmly committed to red, but your blue is a bit shallow. There's also a Treasure Cruise in your pack that would be good in your deck but not as good as Angel. Once you take Angel here, you need to adjust your mana so you can cast that Angel, which likely means at least eight plains, which means you need to aggressively pick up white cards. This kind of adjustment takes a lot of picks, and the juice better be worth the squeeze. I purposely chose Archangel of Thune for this example because while it's a great card, I believe the juice is not worth the squeeze. The card is easily answered, and we're giving up at least a few cards to not only take this Angel but potentially put ourselves in a position to do guesswork down the line. I don't like guessing. I like to stay flexible and read signals, but sometimes, especially in an event like the Arena Open, it's better to take the higher-powered cards and gamble that you won't be cut in multiple spots. Ultimately, given that I needed a very strong deck to make the money with a loss already, I likely should have taken Thassa and tried to cut blue as much as possible. In these drafts, you don't get really strong cards as much as you would in casual drafts. Passing on them to stay flexible is a mistake I often realize in retrospect. Ultimate Price is a splashable, great removal spell, but this set has plenty of removal. I rarely regret picks in higher stakes spots, as I'm usually focused and prepared enough to make tough calls on the spot. This time, with the set having just been changed a few days prior, I played it safe in a spot I should have taken a bigger gamble. Both picks are respectable, but I'd have had more fun, if anything else, trying to draft a Thassa deck than a normal midrange black deck. I think I was in the right lane and didn't end up getting a bunch of blue or anything, but I still thought a lot about the pick and wondered why. Was it because I lost? It can't be because regardless of my deck, I'm sure I won the maximum amount of matches I could have based on the way I drew. It was the uncertainty that compelled me to write this and think about it for a few days. Learning in Magic is one of the best things about the game. I think I leveled up a bit this past weekend. I've learned that I need to be less risk-averse in higher-leverage situations and be willing to end up with a bad deck now and then against tough competition. I realize that all of this is also true in life. The path of least resistance tends to lead to scripted outcomes, generally with the least upside and downsides. Taking a path of higher resistance will achieve higher highs and lower lows. Learning when to take those risks is key in both life and in Magic.

It's a New Year and a new me. Collectively, as a community and society, we use this otherwise insignificant date to reflect on our accomplishments, set new goals, and recalibrate to focus on the things that are important to us or that we want to change about ourselves. For me, a few years back this was weight loss, and I achieved my goal of losing nearly 100 pounds. After accomplishing this, it feels like there's nothing but my own mind holding me back from any life goals. This year, I moved into a larger home — big enough for my growing children. With this change came a new school, new friends, and all that. I'm so happy about the change, and it was a clear step in the right direction for myself and my family. Magic, however, has become less of a focus in my life. I love the game and community, and while I used to love the competition, I don't need it anymore. I have been competitive my whole life, but this year is the first time I realized I don't need to be the best or play with the best. I just want to enjoy my time spinning around the sun. It feels just as good to me to do well at an Arena Open as it does at the Pro Tour these days. I've thought a lot about it, and my goal this year is to make sure I enjoy playing Magic when I'm playing the game. I canceled my trip to the first Spotlight Series in Atlanta. I was excited about going, and I started to play a little Dimir Midrange in Standard on Arena. While it was fun for a few matches, it fell off quickly for me. The endless grind of playing the same deck against the same few decks repeatedly for hours wore off. There's a reason I love Limited so much. Limited allows me an outlet to express creativity with each draft. If I don't want to play something because I'm bored of it, then I don't have to take those cards. I can still be successful even if it's not always the highest EV decision. Every draft or sealed deck is a new experience, and I enjoy that moderate change. It keeps the game fresh. Standard, however, especially right now, feels more like you have to play one of these specific decks or you're not going to have much success. This year, I did something I didn't think I would do again: I returned to streaming. I first got into streaming via a contract with the Magic Pro League, and once the contract expired, the money in streaming wasn't that good. Between having a young family and other Magic obligations, I didn't have the time despite enjoying it immensely. In 2025, I'm going to stop putting pressure on myself to qualify for anything, and I'm going to focus more on my stream and everything MTG Arena. At this time last year, if you asked me what I preferred between Arena and MTGO, I'd have snapped off, "MTGO, and it's not even close." At this point, I've done a complete reversal. Arena is quicker, cleaner, and a better experience both to stream and watch on streams. MTGO was my go-to when I only cared about improving and learning. Arena is a terrible proxy for testing paper Magic outside of potentially Mythic Constructed Ladder, but it's an excellent tool for enjoying yourself and playing fast games with up-to-date software. I've been waiting for some kind of announcement from Organized Play about the Hall of Fame or team events, but it seems WotC isn't focused on building on organized play much and is dragging it along in its current form. While I love what the OP system used to be, even in that former state it would still be nearly impossible to participate as a family man. It's shocking every time I think about how often I was away from home for a GP or PT. While I hope to some day be in a PT-testing house, the pursuit of that is going to be through online avenues. If it happens, that's great, and if not, I won't lose sleep over it. My resolution from a Magic standpoint this year is to focus on the content. I will need to figure out how to consistently stream in the summer when my kids are out of school, but I want to stream through the year and reassess next year. I'm hoping it's something I can do while also focusing on family, and I plan to take the necessary steps to ensure that goal. Limited will be the focus of my stream and most of my content. I will dabble in Constructed when the urge strikes me. I want to stop pigeonholing myself into a category. People know me as a Limited guy, but I want to be a Magic guy. I enjoy solving the puzzle of what deck is best in Constructed, but I don't care to play many games after that puzzle is solved. As for non-Magic resolutions, I want to continue to work on my health. I gained five or six pounds back over the past year, and I plan to lose it in the next month or so. It's not a lot of weight, but it still takes focus and discipline to keep off. I want to work on my health, both physical and mental, and overall I just want to do and be better than I am right now, even if just a little bit. I used to look down on silly sayings like "just try and be better than you were yesterday," but it's a good mentality to get into, and focus is the main component in being successful at anything. Many people will make resolutions this year, and by January 3 have stopped thinking about them entirely. At this point in my life, I don't have time to wait to improve myself anymore, I just plan to do it. Happy New Year, and I hope however good or bad 2024 was for you, 2025 is better.

It's been a couple of weeks, but between the exciting B and R announcement and the holiday season, I haven't shared my thoughts on a brand new Pioneer Masters Limited format. I focused on Foundations longer because of the ACQ, where I made it to day two and opened a decent deck but was unable to convert due to some variance. My opponents played great and built great decks, and unfortunately, I drew poorly. Moving on, let me share some thoughts about Pioneer Masters. Pioneer Masters was designed to bring Pioneer cards to Arena with the eventual goal of removing the Explorer format and leaving us with Pioneer. For that reason, I knew a bunch of cards had to be put into this set, some of which have no real impact in Limited, such as Stain the Mind. With that restriction comes the question: did Pioneer Masters feel like an organic Limited format? I don't think so. It's fun for a bit, but the format plays differently than most Limited sets. For one, because of the mechanics, it's hard to entwine certain decks. For instance, if you start out as a multicolor Gates deck and get cut, it's difficult to pivot late in packs because it's filled with cards like Supernatural Stamina and Akroan Crusader — cards meant for linear aggro decks that won't combine well with what we're trying to do in a slower-controlling deck. Dimir Control is a solid archetype and my early pick for best in the format, as it has strong, grindy commons. However, even if Dimir is open, if you don't see the right commons you'll end up playing a hodgepodge of nonsense creatures like Cloudfin Raptor. Cloudfin Raptor is fine in a deck like Azorious Flyers, but it asks you to play a lot of creatures, something the control decks don't want to do. On top of a lack of overlapping synergies, there are also more matchups than usual in Limited. For instance, the Gates deck is strong against Control, especially with cards like Gate Colossus. Control can't close the door quickly, so you end up staring down a more powerful, inevitable deck. Gates has a difficult time with decks like Mono Red and Boros Aggro. Gates is playing almost a full turn behind, and it lacks enough efficient removal to keep up. Gates Ablaze is important for these matchups, whereas a card like Guild Summit is too slow but absolutely busted against the slower decks. Some archetypes don't seem to work. GW appears to be a Hexproof Bogles-type strategy with cards like Gladecover Scout and Bassara Tower Archer as targets. Unfortunately, even when you suit these things up with counters and auras, there's a lack of cards like Etheral Armor to win combats against large creatures. Orzhov looks best as a Sacrifice Midrange deck, which is great against the aggro variants of the format, but you're often too slow against a deck like Gates. This rock-paper-scissors-type of gameplay is a cool twist on a Limited format but not something I'd want out of a serious format with serious events. However, this format is meant to enable Constructed on Arena, and we're lucky we get to draft and play with some of our favorite cards from the past decade or older. As a Limited lover, Pioneer Masters misses the mark, at least for now, but I'm sympathetic to the plight of designing a set intended first for Constructed and with a specific set of cards that had to be included. Things may change. Pioneer Masters will rotate cards as time goes on. They will remove some cards and add different cards to shake up the format, so things could change a lot with each iteration. For instance, Goblin Heelcutter is supposedly leaving the format with the next change. Heelcutter is potentially the most important common in some of the best-performing Red Aggro decks. This will drastically change the power level of Red Aggro, and we may see a shift in exactly how you draft specific archetypes, even if they remain viable and intact. That is a cool twist and reminds me of how much fun I had with some iterations of Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered while others were a bit less interesting. As for color balance, I like both heavy-Red Aggro decks and Dimir Control. Gates is too inconsistent but might be the format's most powerful deck at its peak. Gates' issue is moving out of the archetype is nearly impossible, and all it takes is another Gates player at the table to sink your draft. For that reason, the way I get into Gates is when I get passed payoffs. I speculate aggressively on them, and you have to commit as early as possible. Waffling and passing payoffs like Gates Ablaze will let other people in the door to limit the upside, which you need. Bad Gates decks are worse than other archetypes, coming up a card or two short. I find it hard to get into other archetypes since everything seems to steer me towards Red Aggro or Grixis Control. There aren't many other archetypes I'm that interested in drafting. I'd like to piece together an Izzet Nivix Cyclops Prowess deck, but the pieces don't seem to fall into place often. I tend to always end up in the same spot because I feel white and green are poorly positioned in the format. Without much incentive to take cards of those colors, I get a bunch of Dreadbore, Ob Nixilis's Cruelty, Fallaji Archaeologist, and Treasure Cruise or a bunch of Dragon Mantless, Goblin Heelcutters, and Makindi Sliderunners. There's not much in between unless I'm feeling risky and end up in Gates. Overall, you won't regret it if you miss Pioneer Masters, but it's possible later iterations make the format feel more organic and nostalgic for Magic's 2010s era.

Fresh off my stream, I saw that we have a massive B&R announcement. My favorite Modern cards ever are all unbanned — Mox Opal, Faithless Looting, and Splinter Twin. Green Sun's Zenith is interesting but not on the same level as these other prolific bangers. The official WotC B&R: While it's no secret the world has been cheering for a Twin unban for years, my honest hunch is Twin won't be that powerful in this more explosive, completely juiced Modern format. It is interesting that we can use it along with Fear of Missing Out to loot through our deck and make a 2/3 attacker per card in our deck. This can't win through a three-power first striker or indestructible creature, but you can also turn any card in your hand into any card in your deck and likely achieve a win. FOMO isn't too bad of a card, so maybe we can just throw some Twins into a normal deck and focus on the combo but have it come together as a supplemental plan. Twin was a slam dunk unbanning. I doubt it becomes the best thing to do, but it's possible it's squeezed into some decks as a supplemental plan. For the nostalgia and memes alone, it's a WotC win. Let's move to Faithless Looting. This one is scary, and I'm not sure how many cards broke it in the past few years, but I'm sure there are some. The thing about Faithless Looting is it is mostly used as a graveyard enabler, and there have been countless ways to attack the graveyard put into the ecosystem, especially with cards like Urza's Saga in the format. People can even justify playing a copy or two of a card like Soul-Guide Lantern or Ghost Vaccum in their main decks. Faithless Looting is the second most broken of the unbanned cards. While Twin may or may not flop, Looting will definitely find a home. Unbanning Looting will bring Modern back to what it felt like before all the Modern Horizons sets, at least partly. I'm fully on board with the unbanning, yet another WotC win. It may even find a home in something broken and with the actual best card on the list, Mox Opal. Mox Opal is an obscene Magic card and should have been on the Modern ban list from the jump. Since its banning, we have gotten a bevy of cards that enable and potentially break Mox. That's the thing about cards like Mox Opal and even Mox Amber — the more cards get added to a format, the better these cards get because the cost of inclusion in your decks diminishes. A card like Splinter Twin is capped at what it can do. You can print all the Deceiver Exarchs you want, but it's not going to change the functionality of the card. Mox Opal, however, will continue to get better the more cards are printed. If I were a diehard Modern fan who vigorously managed my Modern collection, I'd be scared to invest in Mox Opals. My hunch is that Mox will be so good that it will inevitably get banned again. While it's by far my favorite card in Modern and one of my favorite cards ever printed, I won't call it a WotC lose, but it will end up being one if they have to ban it in the next 12 to 18 months. Mox Opal is easily the most breakable card from the unban list and may be the most broken card in Modern now. It will be interesting to see how the format develops both utilizing Mox Opal and how decks are built to react to the card. Green Sun's Zenith should have never been banned. Its flexibility is desirable, and it's fun to use for deck building. Think Birthing Pod but not a one-card combo. Dryad Arbor was the excuse to ban it, but keeping Arbor in the format for so long and not GSZ was a mistake. Green Sun's Zenith would have made for interesting decks and card choices. GSZ is a solid card. It's unlikely to break the format and will add a lot of value to the format. This is a very good unban. I will abstain from commenting on the Legacy bans, but from where I'm sitting, banning Frog was high on people's list of things to help the format. I'm glad to see those people getting their desired outcome. Jegantha banned in Pioneer and Modern is interesting. It's a great ban because of the card's ubiquitousness. As far as I'm concerned, just ban all the companions in Constructed but keep the presses rolling on them in Limited. The best Limited mechanic ever happens to be one of the worst Constructed mechanics ever because the puzzle isn't that interesting. In Limited, you're asked on the fly to meet certain conditions while only using a small amount of tools. In Constructed, it's either good or not or your deck already meets the conditions, so why not take a free 8 mana 5/5. That's where Jegantha was. I'll be happy adding a 15th SB slot over a random 5/5 I rarely used. Yorion (Pioneer), you're next. The other bans are mostly what people expected. The One Ring was not long for this world and got tossed into Mount Doom as it was always intended. Those blinded by its power will suffer financial consequences. While it's a cool card for Commander and Cube, it's not a great experience when everyone plays four. The most confusing of the bans is perhaps Amped Raptor. While it's one of the weaker cards banned in Modern in a vacuum, a new member of WotC and friend of mine Abe Corrigan had this exchange on X with Matti Kuisma. This makes a lot of sense and is how they've handled other bannings in the past. In fact, Amped Raptor isn't even the worst Dinosaur ever banned in the past decade. Rampaging Ferocidon takes the cake there and was banned for similar reasons, which was to weaken but not destroy a powerful deck. I can get behind the idea of dinging a deck a bit to keep it in check. Overall, I like the approach of shaking things up. Magic's biggest weakness is how quickly it can become stale at the competitive level, so shaking things up is always something I'm eager about and for the first time in nearly a decade I'm curious about Modern. This was likely the desired effect — bringing people back who have lost interest by turning Modern back into what it used to be. Maybe, just maybe, I'll play Modern sometime. WotC did a good job this go. I'm still perplexed how a card like Ponder is banned when cards nearly at its power level, like Preordain, aren't present in the format because spending mana for card selection is mostly a thing of the past. I'm happy it's banned because waiting for players to resolve it is more annoying than waiting for a shuffle after a fetch. From a power-level perspective, Ponder and many other cards are safe to release from prison. I'm sure we'll see more unbannings in the future. For now, let's enjoy casting some Moxen while we can.

Booster draft is the lifeblood of Magic: the Gathering. Any time I’ve lost touch with Magic, it’s not a cool Constructed deck that hooks me back in, it’s a new Limited format where I can jump back in without feeling like I’m going to be competing with people who have weeks, months, or in some cases years more of knowledge. For newer or returning players, there’s been no better time to jump in than Foundations Limited. Foundations is a masterclass in design for what it was meant to be — a simpler, more basic set that displays what Magic is and its potential. I’m often a critic of WotC, as someone who cares about the game and its direction, so I am happy to give credit when it’s due.  One concept of booster draft that keeps coming up, and one that is often overlooked when I watch great drafters play Limited, is the importance of a specific pick out of a specific pack.  The win rate of a card is not the best reason to select one card over another. Limited decks are often made up of mostly commons, a few uncommons, and a rare or two. Maybe the rarities have upshifted a bit since the release of the play booster, but functionally it’s all the same.  Often, especially on stream, I don’t have a clear answer for “What’s the Pick?” The cards are close in power level, and in many cases, it doesn’t matter what you take early between two cards in your colors with similar power levels. What matters is how you follow those picks when you have enough context. The later picks contain most of the value. You don’t need to sweat too much when you’re deciding between a Bushwhack or a Bite Down the second or third pick of a draft. What matters is that if you take the Bushwhack you know you should be more open to taking cards to splash later, and if you take Bite Down you likely want a much lower curve to get your creatures out before your removal. The win rate differential with this pick matters much less than both the known and unknown contexts of the pick. Too often, people focus on drafting like it's a science and remove all the nuance from a complicated strategic game. Drafting is an art form, and you are the artist. You see the final product in your head and navigate the draft in a way that will get you to that desired outcome.  Many people will look at 17Lands.com to find the highest win rate red card to determine the best red common. There are so many reasons this is a flawed approach, but if everyone’s doing it, you should be doing it too in many cases. This is where I value the data the most. Following trends is important in draft. Our decks are often best when we have a mix of the good commons. If every pack had a Burst Lighting, then at some point we have to be taking creatures over Burst Lightnings. For this reason, knowing the general consensus of pick orders is in many ways more valuable than formulating your own. Let’s pretend there were only three cards to draft: Rock, Paper, and Scissors. If the goal of your deck is to have a mix of each, and the community is slamming Rock because it’s a bomb, then even if you disagree, you should be taking it in many cases due to its perceived value.  In many cases, this is simply deciding to either take the solid two-drop or the great four-drop. There are a lot of solid four-drops, but playable two-drops are sparser, so I’ll take the two-drop even if the card is a bit worse on rate. The goal of drafting isn’t to find out the best cards and take them as early as possible. You don’t win Magic games by coming to a realization first, you win Magic games by compiling a bunch of small edges. Let’s say the average draft position of a card is the eighth pick, and you think it’s great and one of the best cards in its color. Your goal shouldn’t be to take it first or second. Your goal should be to have them land in your lap during the sixth or seventh pick, slightly ahead of the average draft positions, and you’ve accumulated a lot of value. Once you start taking cards too aggressively, you’re losing the opportunity to make huge value gains later. Maybe this card that goes eighth on average goes ninth and you just cost yourself the second-best card from a fresh pack because you jumped the gun. There’s also value to be gained if people are taking “ the bad cards .” If you know Infestation Sage is a bad card and should only be played in your heaviest black decks with lots of sacrifice outlets and synergies (decks I avoid since the juice isn’t worth the squeeze) then you will dismiss an Infestation Sage in a pack like you would a card such as Broken Wings. It’s a card in the pack that you don’t assign value. In the circumstances you need it, you’ll take it on the wheel or late in packs. It’s important to realize there’s a percentage of people out there who think it’s the best black common and that is more of a signal about the availability of black. That doesn’t mean take it if you think it’s not a good card, but it does mean be aware that you’re potentially sending and receiving a signal that you may not agree with, but your pod does. Following the trends and understanding the flow of drafts will also conceptually change your evaluations of colors as time progresses. Let’s look at Foundations: Green is my current pick for the best color. Blue has somehow stood the test of time, as it’s aggressively drafted by top players and is still in the same category. Saying green is best may sound crazy to you, but it’s because of trends. Green got labeled out of the gate as the worst color, and rightfully so, as it’s a bunch of unexciting creatures and random fight-or-bite spells. The trend of green being underappreciated leaves it as the most valuable in my eyes. The creatures at rate are better than the creatures of any other color, the removal is a little weak, but the biggest value in green is how late the top commons, uncommons, and even rares and mythics go.  People refuse to play “the worst color” far too often, and right now is a great time to capitalize. I went into the Arena Open with a clear plan to take green cards if the color appeared open at any point because I knew others would be unwilling, and I would get rewarded. That situation happened in my first draft, and I capitalized on the value that the players at my table didn’t appreciate.  My first Arena Open deck Many players would prefer to close Arena knowing they were in the best color and lost than being in the worst color and losing. That fear pushes people away, especially in higher stakes events, such as the Pro Tour.  Understanding the patterns is key. I know I'll get in green if I get passed a solid rare, but it’s the commons that are the most curious ones. If I see Llanowar Elves, then I know green is likely open. This isn’t because I highly value Llanowar Elves. If I'm just dipping my toes into green, I prefer it be for a card like Bite Down since your support color should be for removal in many cases in Foundations, as it’s the most difficult and desirable hole to fill in a deck. However, I know people love Llanowar Elves, and it’s likely the card with the highest average draft position. For that reason, I can recognize it’s open. Even if I don’t take the Llanowar Elves, I won't be scared to jump in if I see something a pick or two later.  Black was generally considered the strongest or second-strongest color in Foundations Limited when the set hit, but trends changed. For a week after the set’s release, I was getting Stabs on the wheel at the seventh pick. I could fill my decks with black removal and none of the abysmal creatures the color has at common. Why did this happen? For one, Infestation Sage was, and maybe still is, a card people take far too aggressively. At the time, maybe they were taking it over Stab. Now they aren’t, so the value that usually spills through isn’t there anymore. Currently, and it will likely change in the life cycle of this longer-lasting Limited set, black is the worst color, and it’s not that close. I avoid drafting black like people do drafting green. It’s mostly because others are overdrafting black. While this will be different for each draft depending on the packs and players at the table, there’s usually something to fall back on when a color like green is almost always open.  Regardless of what you take away from this, remember that one step to becoming a great drafter is realizing what cards are good, but to take it to the next level, you have to be able to observe, understand, and react to trends in Booster draft.