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This past weekend, we had the Arena Championship Qualifier. I was qualified in almost every way possible. While I haven't fully begun exploring the format, I used this opportunity to pick a deck and learn it a little bit. I wanted fast games, since I didn't want to spend my weekend playing midrange grindfest with zero practice. If I was going to lose, it should be quick. Regardless, high-stakes events are great for practice. Since I have an event in Atlanta in just over a month, I wanted to explore at least one deck. My weapon of choice this time was Mono Red Aggro. I got the list from a friend of mine, Daniel Brodie, and got some tips from him, too. I made a small tweak here and there based on almost no information, except I expected to play almost half mirrors. I was wrong in retrospect, and while I don't think there's a way to figure out an exact metagame, I played five matches: two against UW Oculus, two against Domain, and one mirror. Being unfamiliar with the format cost me some games in my 2-3 run, but this deck was flawed and looks worse than the Gruul Prowess version. While the deck's mana is smooth with its zero lands that enter tapped, it has an issue with needing to draw a specific number of lands and does not get any value out of its fifth land. I dislike this deck style, especially on a 21 land count, as it winds up being too inconsistent and almost never winning those close top-deck games. I played an extra Shock to account for the mirrors, and on day two I was going to switch it back for a Monastery Swiftspear. Lithomantic Barrage was awful. I played against Oculus decks, but the Oculus almost always comes into play as a 6/6 with Recommission. You can't have a card like this that is inconsistent in what it's trying to accomplish. If a card said to flip a coin and kill a creature for one mana, it would be unplayable, yet this is often what was going on. I did bring Barrage in against Zur, but it doesn't help much if they have a Leyline Binding in play already. I'd prefer Gruul's Sideboard tools to Mono Red's. While playing red, I felt like I could never beat well-timed removal. I had to jam my cards and hope they got through, often walking into cards like Elspeth's Smite or Unsummon. Once I lost tempo, I was often stuck with low-impact cards that couldn't carry me over the finish line. Gruul piloted by Seth Manfield was able to take home a slot in the Arena Championships. Gruul looks to be able to play a longer game with cards like Questing Druid and Inkeeper's Talent in grindier matchups. Pawpatch Formation is the kind of sideboard card I want in this metagame out of an aggressive deck, as well. On top of not knowing the format, everyone was prepared for Mono Red in this event. I played against so many narrow sideboard cards that it felt silly like I walked right into a buzzsaw. While Mono Red is certainly playable, and potentially will even be good if people ignore it at any point, I don't see that happening any time soon. Now that I have that deck out of my system, I need to make a plan moving forward for what I want to figure out. First, I want to try Oculus. The deck seems powerful and consistent. While the deck is great against aggro, it seems like it can grind well and might have a lot of potential sideboard options to explore to give it a different angle to attack. While I don't have any specific ideas in mind, that's definitely on my agenda. The most important thing I can work on is figuring out what is the best black midrange deck, specifically which flavor of Dimir. Dimir is an interesting archetype with so many reasonable options that it's difficult to decipher the right split of creatures, removal, and counter Magic. I'll need to play a lot with the archetype to know, but that's my first plan moving forward. I likely will devote next week to it, unless I decide the deck is not worth the effort after a day or two. I suspect that will not be the case. The metagame is so open right now that the best approach I can take is to play a few games with each deck that looks interesting and get a lot of reps in. I suspect I'll like the playstyle of Dimir the best, especially in an open-entry event. Overall, the player pool will be weaker than at the PT, and if I know my stuff, I should be able to get a reasonable edge. I have no interest in playing any Domain deck. I've always loathed that approach to Standard where I play a control-style deck that's not proactive but also is playing so many colors my mana can become an issue. My top three choices right now would be: 1) Dimir Mid 2) Gruul Prowess 3) UW Oculus This is by no means an in-depth informed analysis. This is mostly a vibes-based approach based on how open the format is and how well I think I'd do with said decks. Right now, I don't like red much and will likely not return to test that one without a solid new plan. I likely won't even test Domain, as it doesn't seem good enough that I have to play it, and it doesn't pass the eye test for me. Moving forward, I'll keep you, the reader, in the loop with how my testing is going, and if I'm able to rule out any decks.

For a core set, I'm still enjoying Foundations limited. It's likely my favorite core set draft of all time, but I want to let some of the recency bias wear off before I declare it as fact. I've drafted the format a lot, and while it's almost exclusively on my stream, I have had the urge off-stream to fire up a draft here and there as well. While I don't usually use any tracking software, I've come around to utilizing Untapped.GG as a tool for my stream that also keeps track of my stats. Here are my stats in Arena Bo1: I'm told 67% is a great win rate for Best of One, and I'm currently moving to Best of Three where I've only lost a single match in five drafts, giving me a 14-1 record overall. After playing, talking, and theorizing about the format, here are some of my conclusions. I will preface this by saying what works for me might not work for you and what you succeed with may not work for me because Limited has a lot of moving parts that aren't easy to simplify. In Limited, two conflicting ideas can be true for different individuals based on play style, biases, and risk tolerance, among other things. My Favorite Archetype: Izzet Spells Izzet has tools to compete with any other archetype. Counterspells are excellent, and most importantly the threat du jour is Tolarian Terror. Terror dominates the battlefield and can rarely have easy interaction. The most important aspect of this archetype is Burst Lightning. Burst Lightning is the best common in the format, and it's not even close. Burst Lightning breaks up early synergies from opponents relying on cards like Llanowar Elves, Healer's Hawk, or Hungry Ghoul. Burst Lightning, because of its kicker cost, also interacts with a majority of the larger creatures in the format and can get your opponent dead, especially in multiples. Izzet also has the best gold uncommon, and my pick for best uncommon, in the set: Balmor, Battlemage Captain. Balmor can flip games instantly, especially with Think Twice at common, effectively turning your card advantage spell into an Overrun. It's worth noting that you can play Dimir in a similar fashion to controlling Izzet, but you won't get that scalability out of Stab like you do with Burst Lightning, and while Dreadwing Scavenger is a great gold uncommon, it does not pack the same punch as Balmor. Izzet is harder to get than other combinations at the moment because people are finally respecting blue, and Burst Lightning, the real draw into red if you're in blue to start, is hard to come by. If you get a pair of Burst Lightning, you're in great shape. You are not looking to play a bunch of creatures in your Izzet decks. That is a massive mistake most players make and a core reason the stats for the combination may look poor if you look at the overall rather than my personal 82% win rate over my largest sample of any archetype. A card with raid should never be in your deck outside of a few exceptions because you shouldn't have enough creatures to support that mechanic. I typically play about 10 creatures on average in my Izzet decks and often less. My Least Favorite Archetype: Rakdos With this one, I have a putrid 31% win rate over a relatively small sample, but I also feel the archetype is flawed in this format. Sacrifice synergies don't work well if you're facing down other good players who prioritize removal in drafts. You shouldn't be able to set up a well-timed Involuntary Employment for a couple of reasons. For one, especially in Bo1, the best decks are blue decks that are relatively threat-light, which often means removal-heavy. Thus, your Hungry Ghoul isn't going to be in play anymore or there's nothing to take control of, you have reactive spells rotting in your hand as they bury you in card advantage. This isn't to say I've had the best Rakdos decks, and I believe the best Rakdos decks will be much heavier in black and won't utilize red's creatures. At this point, I'm avoiding this archetype like the plague. With that said, I've yet to draft Golgari. If you want to get technical, that's my least favorite archetype, but I don't see a way to realistically move into Golgari since the colors don't support each other well and all the Golgari gold cards are fairly weak. Color Rankings/Best Common in Color 1) Blue Blue pairs with basically everything quite well. The ability to draw extra cards, play the best common threat (Tolarion Terror), and interact with the stack puts blue far ahead of the other colors. Blue is where you want to be in this format. Blue's best common is Tolarion Terror, but don't sleep on Think Twice, as it synergizes nicely with lots of what blue is doing, while also being one of the scarce sources of card advantage for the set. 2) Red Red is held up by having the best common in the format in Burst Lightning. Red is mostly aggressively slanted with the synergies it touches on being mostly raid and four-power or more, but also a bit of "spells matter," as you see with Izzet. Red's real strength is it's a good support for every other color. While it's not super deep in and of itself, it provides every other color the support it needs. I like Gruul, Boros, and of course Izzet. Rakdos is my least favorite archetype at the moment that I've drafted with any kind of real frequency, but it has been praised by other players I respect. While I personally don't like it, it's a viable archetype. I almost always have red cards in my deck, regardless of my other color. Burst Lightning is easily red's best common and the best common in the format. 3) White White is one of the deeper colors and plays out the exact opposite of blue. You want a nice low curve with Healer's Hawk as the life-gain synergies are powerful. White has so much lifelink it's able to race with anything and has access to one of the best removal spells in the format, at common to boot, in Banishing Light. White has depth, speed, and plenty of synergies that don't force you to sacrifice too much on power. I don't mind pairing white with anything and may move it up to my second favorite color. White's best common is Banishing Light, but Healer's Hawk plays a pivotal role in a lot of white decks as well. 4) Black This is a bit of a hot take, as most people love black, specifically Dimir. Black has been touted as one of the best, if not the best, colors, but I'm not buying it. Black has the most amount of removal at common, but its creatures are so bad I don't want to play with any of the common ones. It has some nice uncommon creatures like Vampire Nighthawk, but outside of a card like Burglar Rat or Hungry Ghoul in some instances, I don't want black creatures in my deck and that is a problem. While I'm happy to play black, it's overrated by some. I don't avoid the color in the least, but I keep an eye out for when I should start reevaluating cards like Stab and moving them down in my pick order so I don't end up in black too often. Black's best common is likely Bake into a Pie, but I actually prioritize Stab because Bake into a Pie is more replaceable with Eaten Alive in the format. If forced to choose between those two cards, I generally take Stab at the start of the draft. 5) Green The exact opposite of a hot take here, green has been largely labeled the worst color in the format, and with good reason. The common removal spell, Bite Down, is bad because it requires a creature in play in a format where many players are playing at instant speed, and removal really matters. This is not a particularly great Llanowar Elves format, as the games tend to slow to a crawl and Llanowar Elves has the same problem a card like Thoughtseize has in midrange mirrors — the later you draw it, the worse it gets. A turn-one Elves is a big advantage if you can continue to capitalize on the mana advantage each turn, but you usually run out of gas and get stopped in your tracks at some point. I'm not saying don't play Llanowar Elves. I'm saying they're likely a lot less impressive than you'd want them to be. Treetop Spinner is green's best common, but I like my green decks to be more on the aggressive side. I rather like Gruul with four-power-matters stuff, and I like how easy it is to get Giant Growths, which can leverage a tempo advantage out of these more aggressive green decks. Spinner is out of place in these kinds of decks, but it packs enough of a punch to see inclusion in every green deck, providing you with a valuable mana sink for when games slow down. The only real reason to be in green is if it's extremely underdrafted at your table and you can be base green, or you open some kind of really strong rare like Sylvan Scavenging. While I'm mostly fine drafting any of the other colors, I try to avoid green. My approach to this format is to start in a color by taking the best card out of my first couple of packs, which in many cases is a blue card, though not always, and then move into colors when I see either a powerful gold card like Balmor, or I see the signpost removal the color had to offer me such as Burst Lightning, Stab, Baked in a Pie, or Banishing Light. This is a traditional approach that translates well into a set like this core set. While the format is slow and has lots of play to it, you want to equip yourself for playing longer games than you may be used to, and cards like mana sinks and clunkier build-arounds have more potential. With Arena Open and Arena Direct coming up, I plan to play a lot more Foundations Limited, and hopefully cash in at the end.

We have yet another new Limited format to explore. Foundations is designed as a core set that will stick around for five years in Standard. Core sets are usually pretty boring for Limited, but Foundations hits the mark. Foundations has that core set feeling of slightly slower and much grindier. You can still flood out and lose, as not every card you play will have some kind of value tacked onto it like we're used to these days. There's one color I like to focus on in formats like this — blue. Right now, blue is the best color in the format because it has access to stuff other colors lack, in particular it can interact with the stack. Cards like Essence Scatter and Refute can provide huge tempo swings but also let you dictate the flow of the game. Blue tends to have the best card advantage, which is huge in a format like this that is light on mana sinks and also light on effective early plays. Games last longer, so you get more time to card your draw spells. Blue decks can still get run over. Ideally, you have a few counterspells, cheap removal, and specifically Tolarian Terror as your finisher of choice if you're unable to get better top-end rares. Terror stops most decks in their tracks. Cheap removal is of the utmost importance. Terror likes you to have cards like Stab or Burst Lightning. While those are the traditional shells, you can also play UW and potentially even UG with a lot of Bushwhacks, though I haven't tested the Bushwhack theory yet and think it will be more of an outlier. Izzet and Dimir are the easy-to-get-into archetypes I prefer. You take blue cards early, figure out which of those two colors are more open, especially for their removal, and dive in. Here are a couple of screenshots of what these decks have looked like: This is a classic Dimir deck with reasonable top end, card draw, and removal. It's focused on exchanging resources. This deck had a difficult time closing the door. Notice that I had no Tolarian Terrors, which can be a huge problem. I managed to squeak out a lot of close matches, many times at the bottom of my deck. This will only get worse once more people start noticing blue's power. Here we have an Izzet deck that's basically all first picks. This may seem ridiculous, but sometimes you get decks that look this good the first few days of a format. Thrill of Possibility, Think Twice, and Fleeting Distraction are your card draws to push out Terrors faster. Balmor is obscene in this shell since it will usually let you win in a single attack step once you've stabilized your board. The key to these decks is having the cheap removal in Burst Lightning and Stab, which allows you to win on the draw and keep the battlefield clean until the things that matter start to hit. I generally move into either color for these two cards. I prioritize them the most out of all non-blue commons at the moment. You can also draft a deck like this outside of these specific archetypes, but these two will be the easiest to start. Let me share yet another trophy deck, this time, Bant: This deck follows the exact same principles — cheap removal into effective top end. Joust Through and Luminous Rebuke fill the cheap removal role, while I use Tatyova and Guarded Heir to turn the corner. While rarer, you can still often get a pair or more of Luminous Rebuke to set this up, but I don't look to start here. This is a replicable strategy, though the top end will vary. Maybe it's some decent on-color rares, maybe it's Terrors, but regardless, the goal is to bury the opponent in card advantage and make sure anything you can't blank on the battlefield gets managed. We're not trying to race. We're trying to put the opponent in a helpless position. White has the tools to facilitate this plan despite being potentially the most aggressive color in the format. Aggro decks can and do exist, but to win with them, you need good card quality. The commons in this set are weak compared to modern-day sets. The uncommons are almost at par, so you need a depth of higher rarity cards. Here's my first successful aggro deck. Ignore the stray marks since I was pointing something out on my stream and seemed to save the screenshot this way. An extremely low curve is ideal, and while this doesn't quite hit that mark, it's good enough. I had some classic old BREAD — bombs, removal, and for once, evasion is back on the menu. Flying creatures can be necessary to deal damage when your opponent has an otherwise formidable board that lacks the ability to block them. In recent years, evasion has typically been unimportant in Limited, but it's more important when games get slowed down on the ground as we see in core sets. Foundations is no exception. Moving forward, I want to work on green decks. I've been buried every time I've drafted green. I haven't had a good deck yet, and I struggle to see why I'd want to move specifically into green. While the cards individually aren't necessarily bad, they don't seem to lead to a winning game plan quite yet, potentially because I'm unable to pair them with blue effectively. Foundations is surprisingly fun. I thought I was going to dread playing the format. It seemed slow, underpowered, full of reprints, and like it'd be too boring for my taste. However, I love formats that play out a bit grindier, and the slightly upscaled power level has made the core set feel more fun. I love how they're pushing the envelope on Limited, even including an infinite combo that's relatively easy to obtain if you're able to open Bloodthirsty Conqueror and find a copy of Marauding Blight-Priest. I'll continue to focus on Limited for the time being until after the Arena Open, and then I'll dive into Standard. For now, Foundations is a big W for WotC, and I'm happy to see this set.

Foundations has its full release tomorrow, and we finally have the complete set previewed. Much like described, Foundations feels like a core set. After looking through the list of cards, I'm relieved and confused. I got the impression that Foundations would be a smaller set. I suspected it was a small collection of staple-like cards with a few chase rares for newer players to expand on Standard, not that it was necessary. Standard has been one of the best formats in Magic for years, even after it lost popularity. It has felt the most organic and didn't suffer from a lack of rotation like other formats. We've now learned Standard is going to more than double in size regarding the number of legal sets. I suspect Standard will have more criticism because of this, as so many new sets will cause something to break. However, Foundations is pretty tame, overall. I expected to see a lot of staple-type cards like Naturalize, Negate, Shock, Savanah Lion, and Duress, the staples we've had in Standard for decades. While we got some of those staple types, the set did expand on that as well. Burst Lightning, Abrade, and Llanowar Elves stand out as the type of card I expected since these cards fit into decks in the colors playing them in Standard. While I don't like the idea of Llanowar Elves in Standard for five years, I suspect when we're in the thick of it we'll acclimate. I've written about this before, but as a reminder, Llanowar Elves pushes players to be reactive when on the draw, and it's difficult to win if your first play is a tapped land while staring down an opponent with a Llanowar Elves, two lands, and a three-drop in play. Three-drops tend to snowball quickly, so I'm not looking forward to that. Foundations will include Standard-legal starter sets. Within the starter collection, we have many older staples we'd expect including the Temples, a land cycle. Temples have been power crept out by superior Surveil lands, as it's going to be better a majority of the time to add a card to your graveyard rather than your deck. There are times that may not be true, such as when you're playing a deck with tutors and one-ofs and lack access to your graveyard or a reason to dump extra cards in your graveyard. This would be rare, and I'd have rather seen any other dual cycle in that slot, but that would make it more difficult to make exciting new land cycles in future Standard sets. As far as a Limited experience is concerned, I suspect I'll quickly get bored of this set since the power level is low. It doesn't mean it's bad, so I'll play hoping to enjoy whatever they've put together. I'm seeing core-set vibes from the Limited experience because there aren't explicit synergies that require a ton of focus. It'll likely be straightforward and grindy, as the cards are underpowered by today's standards. I'd like to review a few of my favorite cards from the set thus far. Here are my five favorites. Soulstone Sanctuary Soulstone Sanctuary is a nice colorless creature land that we may see played alongside one of Standard's current best cards, Unholy Annex. While it's no Mutavault, Soulstone Sanctuary will provide that demon we need. Soulstone Sanctuary won't likely be a four-of in Standard decks, but it's a nice one- or two-of if you can afford additional colorless lands. Its activated ability is too expensive to be too reliant on, but it's a nice addition though it likely won't see much play as long as Fountainport is legal. It's a nice addition to Standard in case you want to focus on a specific creature type, but it's not a massive staple and won't break things in the way Mutavault has in the past. Sphinx of Forgotten Lore Sphinx of Forgotten Lore is somewhat of a fixed Snapcaster Mage. It doesn't provide immediate value, but you need to be playing a large amount of cheap interactive spells to flashback. Sphinx of Forgotten Lore seems best in a shell with cards like Duress or potentially in Pioneer with Thoughtseize to clear your opponent's answers and then flashback removal and cantrips to start running away with the game. Sphinx of the Forgotten Lore may see Standard play, but it's not completely broken and is a solid creature you can build around. Its 3 toughness is prohibitive since it's going to die to most removal, making it a mediocre card, especially in the face of any incidental graveyard hate that suppresses Sphinx of the Forgotten Lore's ability to flashback spells. All that said, Sphinx of Forgotten Lore will be a ton of fun to play with, and it's right on the cusp of what I'd consider a solid Standard card. Just maybe it's good enough to make a few waves. Kellan, Planar Trailblazer Kellan, Planar Trailblazer is my favorite card from the set. I've been waiting a long time for a spicy Jackal Pup for red aggro decks. Kellan plays the role of a solid one-drop that is far from broken. Kellan can help you curve out and be a mana sink in the mid-game, allowing you to find more gas if you flood out and need to sink mana into Kellan. My biggest issue with Kellan is that Kellan is a legendary creature. Much like Zurgo in the past, it's annoying to play low-impact, one-drop creatures and have to worry about drawing multiples despite them not feeling legendary while in play. Evolved Sleeper, Warden of the First Tree, and Figure of Destiny never had this "what if I draw two" situation. Kellan will see play in any Mono Red deck as a one-drop. While there's a lot of current competition at one mana in red, Kellan is a sweet one-drop that will exist beyond what we see now and five years into the future, as it will always be a solid creature. I love Kellan, and I love how they're pushing to design playable one- and two-drops for these aggressive decks. Abyssal Harvester Abyssal Harvester is such a cool card. While I suspect it's far too fragile to see competitive Standard play, it has such a powerful effect. There are a lot of surprises on this card as I read it. For one, this says put into a graveyard this turn and not put into the graveyard from the battlefield. This means you can discard an Atraxa and immediately put it into play by activating this ability. Abyssal Harvester also doesn't bury the token until it's activated again, so the Atraxa you put into play stays in play. The ceiling on Abyssal Harvester is crazy high, but most of the time it will trade down on mana to a removal spell. This makes for a card that likely can't see heavy consideration as a card to build around. However, we may see some creative ways to activate this thing. Abyssal Harvester will likely sit on the sidelines, but I'd love to play with it in a less competitive environment. I suspect we'll see people try this card in Commander at the very least. Tinybones, Bauble Burglar Tinybones is a cool version of The Raven Man. It's a recycled shell of a card, but I like how this lets us play with opponents' cards rather than 1/1s that can't block. Tinybones will play well alongside a card like Liliana of the Veil and Duress, but I doubt Tinybones will see much play, as it's too low-impact. This may be the most playable version of this card type because you don't need many free cards from it for it to be good, but it requires you to build around it too much to get just a decent card. Tinybones is cute and looks fun to play, so it lands in that category of card that I hope to try. Foundations looks tame, which is a relief. Even though I love to explore set after set of powerful cards, it can be a bit much. Most of the cards in this set likely won't impact Standard much. Cards like Llanowar Elves may have the largest impact, but we'll have to wait and see how things shake up. I'm looking forward to playing both Limited and Standard when Foundations releases, and I've booked my flight for the first major Standard event in Atlanta in January. Hope to see you there!

A few weekends ago we saw the best of the best battle for the title of World Champion and the opportunity to see a new face on a Magic card. When the dust settled, former World Champion Javier Dominguez regained the title. Javier fought tooth and nail, ultimately winning with a Dimir Demons deck that, according to Frank Karsten's data, had a putrid 44% win rate. Javier is on another level and has been the best, or one of the best, for years. Between Javier, Seth, Simon, and JED, it's hard to say who's "the best" at the moment, but there's no need to figure that out. We can just enjoy the show they keep putting on for us. Javier's win invoked a lot of emotions from me. I can't help but want to compete when I see players at Worlds. I've been on the stage before. I've started 3-0 at Worlds in draft multiple times and always ended up with a middling finish that never converted my strong starts. It's hard to do well at such a high-profile event. His win also rubs me the wrong way in that these great players devote their time, energy, blood, sweat, and tears to this game, yet they aren't Hall of Famers. They're not able to take even a small break from the game because they have to keep playing and battling to stay on the Tour. Meanwhile, we have Hall of Fame tags on coverage that props up players who played in a time when their hard work was highlighted. These players deserve their recognition, but so do their peers. In Javier's case, he'd easily fall within the top 10 players who would get into the Hall of Fame if it were revamped today. At this point, he'd be in the top 5 with Seth. If Jon, Kai, Paulo, LSV, Huey, and the list goes on were not playing at their level, many of us, myself included, would not have been inspired to pursue excellence in this silly little game we call Magic. As time goes on, I'd like to see my friends and peers who have earned the honor receive that recognition. Back to Worlds, though. The Standard portion looked, for lack of a better term, sloppy. Javier's deck looked legitimately bad to me. The Doomsday Excruciator package looked lackluster. He'd often be in a tight game, draw the Demon, and not cast it because it forced him to have a Jace in his bottom six cards or would kill him. Outside of that package, the deck looked great. I'd love to see the deck tuned in a way that didn't rely on that package and forced more of its midrange elements. My favorite deck of the event, though I'm not even sure it's built completely optimally, was Kai Budde's Dimir Midrange. This deck looked well-positioned, and Kaito looked nothing short of spectacular. In fact, the only reason I wouldn't want to play Unholy Annex in this Standard format is because of how good Kaito, Bane of Nightmares looked. Tishana's Tidebinder looked bad every time I saw it, so I'd like to move away from that, add a third Kaito, and potentially find another solid two-mana creature to play one or two copies. Regardless, Kai's run in his current life situation is nothing short of inspiring. I have my own health struggles, and I've thought it probably means I can't compete at the level I'd want to anymore, but seeing him compete at a world-class level with a worse circumstance makes me think about what I can accomplish. Kai's career has been nothing short of iconic. He truly is the GOAT. I had a minute to talk to Sam Pardee who admitted before the tournament he should have registered this UB deck, as he thought it was strong. It wasn't completely fleshed out until the last day, and he didn't want to switch from the GB Midrange he'd been working on alongside Seth. When I said the tournament looked sloppy, it was because decks like Seth's GB Midrange didn't look that well-tuned. Maybe it was but for a different expected metagame. Regardless, we now have an idea of what the metagame looks like, and Standard is far from solved. The decks I'm most interested in tuning are both versions of UB Midrange. Nothing else stands out to me. Red, played only by Quinn Tonole, had a 100% win rate. He was the only pilot, had no losses in Swiss, and ran into Marcio's GB midrange, the one deck in the field he was probably a bit disadvantaged against. Quinn's deck looked excellent for the tournament, but it's a one-trick pony that will be easy to push out in a more known metagame where you can prepare to play against this archetype. Quinn said his success against midrange was largely because they cannibalized each other by playing cards like Unholy Annex, which was a bad card against him, even though it's great in mirrors. Quinn recognized this hole in the field and played a fantastic deck to line up for Worlds. But your tournaments at home, and games on Arena ladder, players will be much better prepared for Mono Red, especially now, as it will be a larger part of the metagame which will force the midrange decks to respect and react to it. Quinn played great every game I watched, and really highlighted to me how awesome this year's Worlds was. New up and coming stars, playing against some of the best to ever do it, battling for the most coveted titles in Magic, Player of the Year and of course, Magic's World Champion. Really excited to see how the new guard rises to the occasion in the upcoming years. As usual, Worlds lit the fire in me, which was already slightly lit by my recent commitment to near-daily streaming. I'm planning to book a Magic trip to Atlanta to play the Standard "GP," and we'll see how I'm feeling after that. I plan to focus more on Standard in the coming months, especially with Foundations around the corner. Maybe I'll share thoughts on the Universes Beyond announcement next week, but for now, I'm going to enjoy a new Standard format and everything else Magic has to offer.

I've played a lot of Duskmourn Limited the past few weeks. I'm still fond of the set and enjoy the game play. However, there is a massive difference in the quality of the deck and opponent when you bounce around various online platforms. When I play Best of Three, the drafts on MTG Arena are often softer, and I get tons of value in each draft. When I play Best of One, it seems to have become much tougher, and its baseline is more what I'd expect with a normal MTGO experience. Then there's the Arena Opens. Arena Opens have a massive player pool, even in the first draft of day two. It's so large enough that it's not meaningfully different from how I described the Best of One pool. However, in the second draft, it's almost exclusively strong players who will not give an inch of value. This is the type of situation we have to know how to play with "the bad cards," which is a term for cards below the line you'd normally expect to make your deck. In a format like Duskmourn, the bad cards aren't even all that bad compared to prior formats. Balemurk Leech is a bad card, but it's not the end of the world if you play it when you need a two-drop. Let's look at some more interesting bad cards from Duskmourn and when and why you'd play them. Unwanted Remake This is probably the worst of the bunch I'm about to discuss, and my short answer to playing it is "almost never," but there are fringe cases. I'd want to play Unwanted Remake in a situation where I'm light on removal and my opponent has a powerful creature that needs to be answered. Duskmourn is a fast format and giving opponents free material on board isn't great. That said, you can seriously diminish the size of opponents' creatures with Unwanted Remake, but it's not enough to put into your deck. However, let's say your opponent's deck is lackluster and mopey, but it has five or six Say Its Name and a copy of Altanak, Thrice Called. At this point, you will want Unwanted Remake in your deck. It's an efficient way to mitigate the problem and collapse their whole deck on them. Another situation where I'd play this card is if my opponent had a creature I must answer and I have no available answers. Maybe my opponent has a weak deck with multiple Overlords or Abhorrent Oculus and I can't answer these cards. If I have no answers, this is a card I'll get for free late in a pack that can help in those fringe cases. In general, this is a bad card, and I shouldn't be putting it in my main deck since it's too insufficient. Derelict Attic / Widow's Walk Derelict Attic is the main draw to this card as it's a Read the Bones style of effect, which has classically been borderline playable in Limited. This effect is less desirable as the power level has increased and Best of One Limited has dominated most players' play experience. Duskmourn is a punishing format with powerful cards. Taking a turn off, losing 2 life, to get one extra card in hand is too much of an ask in most spots. However, there are a lot of spots where this card will be solid. This card can do a lot of work for opponents who are playing slower, grindier game plans. Widow's Walk can come into effect if they're trying to pick off your creatures individually, as it will buff the one creature you're left with in play. If my opponent is not pressuring my life total, I want to play this card when I'm on the play, as it's much easier to recover from a turn off when you're the one setting the rules of engagement. Another situation, albeit a fringe case, is if you get three copies of Final Vengeance, which is my favorite reskin from Duskmourn. Now let's also assume you don't have much to sacrifice to Final Vengeance. Well, this is cardboard in play that you can sacrifice while getting tangible value, so that's a spot to play this card in a pinch. I've had people in chat tell me they like this card in Rakdos. I don't, and I don't think they do either. I think what they mean is this card is playable in Rakdos in the absence of similar cards, such as Tunnel Booth and Glassworks, of which I'm in agreement. This card doesn't belong in a specific archetype. This is a card you play when you have to, not because you want to. Don't Make a Sound Quench has never been a strong effect in Limited since the games can drag on, and a card like this can go dead. It's easy to play around, especially in a world where we have rooms to unlock to spend our mana to impact the board. So why would we play Don't Make a Sound? The first instance when I usually end up with this card in my deck is when it accompanies a lot of instants and flash creatures. Let's say I have an Enmity Tracker, a couple of Glimmerburst, and perhaps a copy or two of Appendage Amalgam. My deck is set up to play at instant speed, so the downside of choosing between holding up my Don't Make a Sound and casting my creature is completely mitigated. Don't Make a Sound is also a card you can play when desperate for early plays. If you have a big hole in the early part of your curve, you can weave this into your curve. Generally, I'd only want to do this if I felt I was going to win the late game. Otherwise I'd rather play a bad creature that can close the door first. The reason I most often have this in my deck is my opponent has Valgavoth's Onsalught in their deck. Don't Make a Sound is an efficient, clean answer to, in my opinion, the best card in the format. In the modern Limited, we come across the best rare a lot more often, and it's nice to have a common that can cleanly answer it while having other versatility. In general, Don't Make a Sound is a sideboard card, unless you've met the flash requirements of five or more other instants or flash creatures. Found Footage Found Footage is a bad card. It's too inefficient for what it does and only helped slightly by being able to break up the three mana you're spending for card selection. Found Footage is a bad card that can get you most of the way to Delirium and has value in some spots. There are specific spots where I'd play Found Footage. For example, in a deck that has four or five delirium payoffs and little in the way of getting over the hump. Another spot is a deck that has three copies of Hand that Feeds, two copies of Fear of Burning Alive, and maybe a copy of The Rollercrusher Ride but is missing ways to get lands into the graveyard. Found Footage can play a role. This will generally happen when you have a lot of creatures in your deck, few instants or sorceries, and not much in the way of manifest. In these spots, a card that has a chance to give you instant delirium is a time you can make room for a copy or two of Found Footage. Found Footage is not a card you should play because you want to dig for bombs or anything similar because it's too inefficient. Horrid Vigor Horrid Vigor is the most commonly requested card I get asked to play that I have no interest in playing. It may be the best card in this bunch, but it's a bad card. People often use Horrid Vigor incorrectly to counter a Murder or some other removal. This is the exact opposite of when you want this card in your deck. Horrid Vigor is best suited against creatures, especially large creatures. You want Horrid Vigor in your deck when you're unable to push through the opponent's defenses. For example, you'll want this card when you have a low-curve RG deck and encounter a five-toughness creature that's nearly impossible to get through. Another spot is because you have too many creatures. Let's say you draft a deck with 19 or 20 creatures and don't have many non-creature spells that impact the board at all. In that circumstance, Horrid Vigor can fill the role of removal, much like any combat trick. Horrid Vigor is especially good at winning combats against green creatures, as they tend to significantly outsize other creatures, and green is always lacking in instant-speed removal to punish you for casting Horrid Vigor. Ultimately, if both you and your opponent have a lot of creatures, and especially if your opponent's creatures are larger than yours, that is the spot you want Horrid Vigor. If your opponent has a lot of instant-speed removal, that is when you don't want Horrid Vigor. If my opponent has a lot of removal and I'm playing on curve, I won't be able to pay the required 2 mana to cast Horrid Vigor and keep my creature alive. I'd rather play a bad, two-drop creature because it's a threat the opponent has to answer. It's okay to have a bad draft and resort to playing the bad cards, but we shouldn't convince ourselves that they are good cards because they've been good before. Most Magic cards have some uses and will look good, but we can't remember cards at their best. We need to evaluate them critically, and everything has an opportunity cost.

Two weeks ago I went to my first paper tournament in a long time. I missed all my friends. My wife knew this and planned a nice weekend getaway for the two of us, allowing me to see some familiar faces. My heart wasn't in trying to qualify, and I didn't know if I'd play any Magic. My priorities have shifted dramatically as I've gotten older. It was pleasant seeing some old faces, but the fire to compete wasn’t there. Recently, my engagement with Magic has been strictly about fun and content, and honestly, at this point, I prefer it that way. I’ve gotten back into streaming, I’m still writing, and I still love this game very much. I once made sacrifices to be at every tournament, play in every major event, and always be prepared as much as I could muster. These sacrifices are no longer feasible and don’t feel enticing. Maybe it’s the current system, the shift in the design philosophy, just getting older, or likely all these options. However, I did meet some people who watched the stream and followed my content for years.  A friend of mine, a recognized figure in Magic whose name I’ll omit, once told me, “You know, I just don’t care about winning as much anymore. I feel much more comfortable being a coach and ushering in the next generation.” It sounded insane to me at the time, but I get it now. I played a single LCQ over the weekend. I chose to play Sealed rather than Pioneer, as I knew the format way better. I felt like a sardine crammed into a small space building a deck, stumbling around to get my tokens out of my deck box, and trying to keep the game stats clear in a format with lots of permanents and various counters on those permanents. I didn't know when my round was going to be up since there was no round timer for side events, pairings went up at random, and you had to circle your area or constantly refresh your phone. While the games themselves were fun and I’m glad I played the one event I did, all of the other stuff felt a bit disorganized and cumbersome.  The Sealed LCQs were four rounds. My pool wasn’t great, but it was capable of winning. I had the best rare in the format, Valgavoth’s Onslaught, some removal, and other solid rares, though my filler was kind of bad.  In round three, I played a long, grindy game one and two. Unaware of a round timer and having received no indication when the round ended, I managed to pull out a win with a single card left in my deck in game two after losing a close game in a top-deck war game one. We asked the judge about the remaining time and length of the extension we could receive. He said the round was a solid five minutes over the round timer, and we were going to play game three in sudden death. Sudden death means you win the match if you're the first to deal damage or gain life. Being on the draw, this is obviously a massive disadvantage, but it didn’t bother me much. In fact, I enjoyed the mental exercise of how to build my deck for that on the fly. I managed to put six one-mana spells in my deck consisting of three one-mana 1/1s, a bounce spell, a pair of Unable to Scream, and 20 basic lands. My first two hands weren’t good enough and consisted of only one mana color. When I went to five, I decided to keep a hand with a two-mana 1/1 unblockable, Silent Hallcreeper, another three- or four-mana spell, and lands. I figured since I was on the draw that it was better to try and peel something with the 1/1 in hand than go to four and hope for the best. Mulling to four was probably correct, but shuffle fatigue got me, and I just hoped I’d get lucky.  My opponent predictably played a two-mana creature, which I matched with my 1/1 unblockable that I could use to block. He followed it with an aura to give it +2+2 and trample on turn three and, for lack of a better term, sent me home. I didn’t feel like starting from scratch, building another deck, and hoping to battle more. It was already four or five o’clock, and my wife was waiting to eat dinner.  I spent the rest of the trip seeing friends and hoping someone busted out early so we could go do something. Instead, all my friends did pretty well, which is great, so my wife and I went to DC for some sightseeing.  The trip was still fun. I did all the non-Magic stuff I love, but I don’t think I’ll do something similar again. Does that mean I’ll never go to a Magic event again? Of course not. I’ll go when my heart is in it, but I learned that I can’t half-ass events —i t feels silly to me. I’ll either invest myself or not. If I plan to go, I’ll play the event's format and try-hard it a bit. While shuffling cards and seeing people was fun, I'd have more fun waiting around and spectating at home. I’ve enjoyed playing Magic from the comfort of my own place where the battlefield resolves itself, the table space is infinite, and there’s always another event to immediately jump into with no wait times.  My eye, for now, will be firmly on Limited. I qualified for the Arena Championship Qualifier (ACQ) via Limited ranking on ladder, most of which was on stream, and we have the Arena Open this weekend (as of writing).  I’ll be working live on stream and will write my final thoughts on the format before the Championship, as I will likely focus on Sealed next week and more on Booster draft this week. Arena Open's day one focuses on the Sealed format, and I see it as something I can brute force my way through which will give me some practice for the ACQ. The draft is where the value is for the Open, so I’d like to be ready for this weekend.  After that, Standard has just rotated, and I’m eager to look around, see if it’s fun, and maybe dip my toes into that format. I’m eyeing potentially playing the first “GP” in Atlanta to start off next year and would like to be fully committed and knowledgeable if I go. For now, I will continue to focus on my content and what’s right in front of me. Stay tuned.

I've played a lot of Duskmourn Limited this past week. I've played a majority of it on stream and have discussed the format a lot with the community. I'm comfortable with the format now and have learned quite a bit. Color balance I'm commonly asked on stream what I think is the best color or color combination. Not many want to hear the answer. Simply, there isn't one. This isn't entirely true, as there are a couple of color combinations and even a color I favor, but ultimately the open color is the best by a lot in Duskmourn. There's no color so weak you can't win with it. If I was forced to choose a color I prefer to draft, I would currently choose red. Red is deep with efficient removal, solid low-curve creatures, and I like red paired with any color. In fact, for many people the least preferred color combination with red is Rakdos, which is my second-highest win-rate archetype overall and only trails Izzet. Izzet, according to 17Lands, is the worst-performing deck overall or close to it last time I checked. While my personal sample with every color combination is small, I am confident it's about when you move into these colors and not the colors themselves. Red is deep at common. Much like the rest of the format, you need to know what decks want to play which cards. For instance, Ticket Booth/Tunnel of Hate is a card I love in Rakdos. It's a three-drop that leaves a blank game piece in play to sacrifice to many of the sacrifice outlets in the format, and Rakdos is great at putting menace creatures into play and closing the game with Tunnel of Hate. Most Valuable Slayer is one of the best commons in the format. MVS, as we've been calling it, makes blocking challenging for the opponent, but you don't want it in Izzet or any deck that isn't curving out. You want MVS mostly at the top of your curve. While MVS is a card I've first picked, I won't play it in every red deck. It's a unique aspect of this format that there are cards that are quite good, but don't go into any old deck you draft. Removal is the safest choice early, as it will go in every deck, but a lot of the other cards have a lot of contextual value. For this reason, you'll have a difficult time if you use just 17Lands data to guide you. This is a format where knowledge of the format and how the games play will benefit you. MVS may have a lower win rate than you'd think since it's being put into decks it doesn't belong, which leads you to believe it's worse than it is in your RW Aggro deck. You might do a deep dive through the data, but mostly you should play with the cards, watch streams, or however you familiarize yourself and learn the format. There's a lot of value in understanding the format's color pairs and how each individual deck wants to utilize the format's depth. While almost every color pair is viable, there are two pairs I would avoid. Selesnya and Dimir have both been nothing short of awful. There's no solid strategy for the color pairs. While you can likely find a good Dimir deck, Selesnya seems to be close to a lost cause. Survival as a mechanic isn't strong enough to carry a color pair, and Dimir doesn't have a strong game plan since it often lacks enough threats to close games. Both of these color combinations lack quality signpost uncommons, which leads me to my next point. Look for the sign(posts) As for the playable color pairs, the gold uncommons are almost all quite strong. If you open a weak pack and take a common like Murder, you don't want to use that as a card to guide your draft. It's better to be willing to abandon it in the first few picks and take a strong uncommon gold card to pivot into. Finding the right lane can take some time, but if and when you find it, your deck will vastly benefit. Here's an example of a deck I drafted today. I bounced all over the map and ultimately ended up in Rakdos because of a late Sawblade Skinripper. I started with a blue card. I tried all the way through pack two to get into Boros, but no signpost cards meant the archetype wasn't there, and I pivoted into the red archetype that was available. The deck isn't full of broken or good rares. I'm not playing many truly bad cards. While I'd rather not play a card like Impossible Inferno, it's not the end of the world when you do. I've had success locking into a color, being patient, waiting for gold cards to end up in my pile, speculating aggressively on them, and starting my pivot. The format is deep, and the value is in those middling picks where you get first-pick quality cards. I've taken cards like Murder first pick and tenth pick, and I don't think it's that out of line. The format card and color balance are deep. It's all about putting together a deck and not just taking the best card of a color, as that will change with context. One excellent change about this format that goes somewhat unnoticed is that while the gold signpost cards are mostly powerful, almost none of them are splashable. Most of them want you to be in the color pair that they represent. As many are two-drop creatures, most people aren't looking to splash a card like Wildfire Wickerfolk or Oblivious Bookwurm. These are cards that when you see them in pack one, you can expect to see more gold cards of those colors. ABC ABC means "always be closing." In this format, especially in Bo1, I'm noticing myself almost always taking aggressive lines. Without overwhelming card advantage, life total advantage, etcetera, I'm looking to leverage tempo and spend mana efficiently rather than focus on grinding down value. This often means making a play where I take more damage to set myself up later for one or two turns where I can position myself better on board. Occasionally you run out of gas and lose, but there are tons of cards that punish you for trying to block a lot. Whether it be the plethora of removal, or cards like Most Valuable Slayer, I'm attacking or directly working on my long-term game plan. For instance, if you have access to a card that goes over the top of most of the format, like Valgavoth's Onslaught, then you can play a longer game. It's hard to have confidence that your deck will out-engine against an unknown opponent's deck. In many formats, you can infer that the Boros Aggro deck will be disadvantaged as the game progresses, but there are a lot of rares that turn the corner in a normal game. Creature sizing is relatively small. There are often roadblocks in the way, like Glimmers and Innocuous Rat, that slow the games down, but there are also ways to close the game out in a hurry. You never know when your opponent will cast the Rollcrusher Tide in the late game and end the game on the spot. In general, I make plays in the early game that spend the most mana possible, even if it puts me behind on board for a turn or two, as long as I think my position will be positive on about turn five. To focus on closing, one thing I do during the draft is make sure I keep as lean a curve as possible. I don't like top-end in this format. There are few expensive value creatures, and none that come to mind at common at all. Mostly, expensive creatures eat a cheaper removal spell, and you fall behind on board. I don't mind a land cycler and maybe one other solid six-drop, I typically won't play more than three cards that cost five or more mana, and I want to focus on double spelling as much as possible. Most underrated cards Lastly, I'm going to talk about some cards that are going far too late in my drafts in best-of-one queues on Arena. 1) Most Valuable Slayer I've talked a good deal about this, but MVS is often wheeling, and I can reliably get them every draft. I suspect this should change, as this is a high-impact common. 2) Final Vengeance People seem to have Bone Splinters brain about Final Vengeance. This isn't the typical format where fueling it is difficult. Being able to sacrifice an enchantment leaves room for a ton of cards to fuel it. We have Rooms that have value, Glimmers, Innocuous Rats, and we get to live the dream when we can pick up Vengeful Possession. An important aspect of this card is the ability to exile. There are a lot of creatures you want to exile in this format to avoid losing value, and Final Vengeance covers your bases. 3) Sawblade Skinripper This is a function of people not yet valuing Rakdos, but I suspect that will change. I don't think I'm winning as much as I am with Rakdos on accident, and Skinripper is a huge reason why. Rakdos is slightly underdrafted, and Skinripper is a lot better than it looks. This will wrap up my thoughts on the format this week. I may go a bit deeper next week after my trip to DC to play some LCQs but we'll see what comes up. Until then, stay flexible and remember to ABC.

We've finally got our final and complete set list for Duskmourn. While I've selected most of my favorites, I found a few more cards that caught my eye. Let's take a look. Overlord Balemurk In terms of raw power, Overlord Balemurk is on the weaker side of the Overlords. However, its two-mana impending cost makes it competitive for 60-card formats. For two mana, we can self-mill, bring back a creature or walker, and then five turns later, we have a potent threat with a 5/5 that returns more if it gets the chance to attack. This card hits the sweet spot of mana efficiency on top of value, and it won't be a challenge to cast at five mana later in the game. Unfortunately, it won't get to return other copies of itself because of its non-Avatar clause, but it's still an aggressively costed threat that will help enable delirium with self-mill and its two card types. Overlord Balemurk is a solid card with Standard potential. However, I wouldn't expect to see it in Pioneer or beyond. Unstoppable Slasher Unstoppable Slasher is one of the most obnoxious cards I've seen. Maybe it's the Limited player in me, but it will be one of the scariest cards to face down in the format on turn three. I could see a world where it's not good enough for Standard since it's competing with a whole world of powerful three-drop creatures. I'm interested in testing it because it's a sticky threat that will always trade in combat and quickly clock the opponent. There are only three attacks to deal the opponent lethal damage, and the first hit hits the hardest. Slasher will only shine in a format where the removal doesn't exile. Depending on what removal suites look like in Standard, Slasher could be a sneaky card to add to decks when it dodges the format's most-played removal. I would be most excited about Unstoppable Slasher as a singular threat out of something like a UB Control deck. Dealing with it requires multiple removal and it will have a mostly clear path to clock the opponent. Unstoppable Slasher is potentially strong. I expect it to see some play in Standard play and possibly, but unlikely, in a format like Pioneer. Ghostly Dancers It's cool to see them lean into their new mechanics a little bit with Ghostly Dancers. The ability to unlock a door could be powerful in some situations with rooms like Awakening Hall or Fractured Realm. With Fractured Realm, you'd immediately get two 3/1 spirits, but this seems more like a meme than a competitive deck. Ghostly Dancers is too expensive to be competitive, and it's unlikely we see many more rooms after this set. While I like the design, it's not a card I'm that interested in testing. However, cards like this are good to keep in mind when they eventually release new sets. Balustrade Wurm Balustrade Wurm would have been a strong card a few years ago, but five-mana cards need to do a lot these days. This one misses the mark despite its ability to sneak in through countermagic and come back from the dead with delirium. It's the perfect example of a card that would have been strong a decade ago, but it's too mana-inefficient and low-impact to see play in Modern-day Standard. Balustrade Wurm has a chance to see play if the stars align for a countermagic-heavy control deck without removal that can exile a large creature. I'm not a big fan of Balustrade Wurm. It may see some niche play here and there, but I'm not holding my breath. Hedge Shredder Hedge Shredder is an interesting vehicle. We have survival, a new mechanic that makes vehicles more compelling and gives this card some potential. Hedge Shredder is weird in that it enables you to ramp mana relatively fast, but it has a big enough body that it threatens to close the game out quickly if it sits on the battlefield. These two are at odds with each other, as Hedge Shredder is the type of card that looks better at the top of your curve and not in the middle because successful ramp decks tend not to play many small creatures to crew the Shredder. I'm not super high on Hedge Shredder, but it's competitively costed and will look better when we, presumably, have Llanowar Elves in every green deck. If I had to guess, I'd say we see people testing Shredder early in Standard, but ultimately it won't be good enough. Kona, Rescue Beastie Kona is a survival creature I've seen a decent amount of hype around, but I'm skeptical. It's true we have access to Atraxa as a big payoff for Kona's survival, but Kona is such a fragile body for four mana. The work required to put Kona into play and get a survival trigger while having Atraxa in your hand seems like putting too many bad cards in the deck to facilitate an early Atraxa. It will happen sometimes, but you can more reliably play ramp spells and more controlling cards that better suit Atraxa and build around Atraxa that way. We have Llanowar Elves coming to Standard soon, but I'm not buying Kona being a competitive Constructed card. I suspect I'll see it added to vintage Cube and get taken as the last pick for a few weeks until it's removed. Kona has a powerful effect when things go well, but I don't suspect they will go well that often. It requires you to have an enabler to get a survival trigger and a payoff in hand, which is too much to ask. Entity Tracker Entity Tracker is another Enchantress that happens to be blue. Its biggest draw is that it can be played outside of a green deck, but without redundancy, a card like this will likely never see Constructed play. Adding flash to Entity Tracker is interesting, as it opens the door to casting it on a tapped-out opponent for an explosive turn. Regardless, I don't think Entity Tracker has enough support to see much play. Its most interesting use would be in a deck like UW Auras in Pioneer or Explorer, but I doubt it would even see play then. It's cool to see a color-shifted card like Entity Tracker, but it's too weak for modern Magic. Exorcise I'd be more excited about Exorcise as an instant, but it still may see some play, especially in sideboards since it's so flexible. Need an answer to Sheoldred or a problematic artifact or creature? Exorcise has your bases covered. Versatility is usually punished with inefficiency in Magic, but Exorcise is competitively costed and does just enough that we'll likely see it here and there, especially in spots where sideboard space is tight and you need that sideboard slot to cover a lot of bases. Exorcise is not the kind of card I'd usually want to main deck because games tend to slow down post-board, so you will have time to cast a Sorcery. This is a good option for Standard and Pioneer that likely won't see much play, but you'll see a copy here and there. That will wrap up my review of Duskmourn. The set looks fairly high-powered at the top end, but it also has a lot of cards that are not efficient enough in today's Standard, especially given it's a much larger format than usual. I'm curious to see exactly how many Duskmourn cards get played outside of Commander. The set looks extremely fun for Limited however, and I'll be diving into that sooner than later. I could potentially use draft simulators this week, and I'm eyeing a return to streaming to play Limited and potentially test Pioneer. Hope to see you there.

Last week, we got a sneak peek at some of the first previewed Duskmourn cards, and this week, we'll continue to look deeper at what the set has to offer. Let's get right into it. New Land Cycle Duskmourn brings a new, exciting cycle of strong dual lands. They always come into play untapped and produce at least one color of mana. These lands are great at enabling light splashes. For example, if we wanted to splash a card like Ancient Grudge in a mostly Mono Red deck, Thornspire Verge would be better than even Stomping Grounds in that scenario. These lands add some weird incentives with powerful one-mana cards that will mostly want to be played in specific color combinations. Thornspire Verge will be great for casting a turn-one Monastery Swiftspear, but you probably won't want to play Llanowar Elves in a deck featuring that same Thornspire Verge. While it looks like we're only getting the allied-colored lands this cycle, I'm eager to see which color lands on which dual. Pioneer Izzet Phoenix would absolutely love it if the Izzet land produced blue all the time. These lands are great in decks where they always produce the dominant color of a deck. They're slightly less good but still strong in decks that are more evenly dispersed with the color of their mana pips. I could see this cycle of lands being heavily played in Standard and Pioneer, with occasional appearances in Modern. Abhorrent Oculus Abhorrent Oculus will be harder than it looks to enable in a format like Standard. It's difficult to get six cards into the graveyard early and requires resource exchanges. I'm looking at Abhorrent Oculus to play in a deck with a lot of one-mana cantrips and on turn four rather than turn three. This card seems primed to potentially see play in Eternal formats, as it's easily enabled with fetch lands, Thought Scour, Consider, and anything that can quickly put multiple cards in the graveyard. Abhorrent Oculus stands out as likely playing well alongside cards like Thoughtseize and Duress because you can exchange resources quickly and strip removal from the opponent's hand to allow Oculus to stick for a couple of turns, generate more value, and potentially find a second copy of itself when it manifests dread. The biggest issue is that it competes with powerful delve cards like Treasure Cruise in Pioneer and can easily be shut off by graveyard hate. I like Abhorrent Oculus a lot. I hope it can settle in and find a home, but its best placement is going to be in a deck where it's the only card that requires a graveyard, so you can make the opponent decide if they want to bring in their graveyard hate for just this one card. I don't want to play this card in a deck like Phoenix where they will be attacking your graveyard in post-board games, and you already have Treasure Cruise to enable. Overlord of the Mistmoors Overlord of the Mistmoors looks strong. While four mana for a pair of 2/1 flying tokens isn't a great exchange, it's also promising you a 6/6 several turns later. This is the kind of card you'd want to see in grindy, midrange match-ups where players are exchanging resources for a long time. It forces the opponent to hold onto an answer for the Overlord for later turns while providing a combined four power between the two 2/1 flying creatures it makes. This card is unlikely to see play outside of Standard, and it may not be good enough for Standard depending on how the decks shake out. If Mono Red ends up being highly represented, then a card like this will get worse. If the best decks are grindier, midrange decks, Overlord of the Mistmoors has a real shot at being one of the better cards for mirrors, as it's essentially four mana for an onboard three for one. If games go long, it should be a solid value card. I'm interested in seeing Overlord of the Mistmoors in action. Unable to Scream This is a rarely seen common that caught my eye for Constructed. Unable to Scream is a one-mana piece of creature interaction in blue that could see play in a lot of formats, at least in fringe situations. For instance, the Mono U Spirits deck I played at Worlds a few years ago featured Witness Protection in small numbers. Unable to Scream is substantially better, relieving all pressure from the enchanted creature, so both your life total and planeswalker loyalty are safe. Unable to Scream's biggest downside is that it will not play well against creatures with counters or other methods of buffing their stats, such as enchantments or equipment. Unable to Scream is a nice fringe playable at common that I'm sure we'll see here and there. Meathook Massacre II You know how they say the sequel is always worse than the original? That has never been more true than with Meathook Massacre II. Meathook Massacre II is a powerful spell assuming you have unlimited mana that is mostly black, a lot of life, and no one trying to win the game in a reasonable timeframe. What I'm describing is a casual Commander game, which I'm sure this was designed for and will play nicely in. For competitive players, we should save the $15 on a movie ticket and instead stay home, make popcorn, and watch the original. Meathook Massacre II is too expensive and color-intensive and not good enough to see 60-card play. Undead Sprinter The last card we'll look at this week is Undead Sprinter. Undead Sprinter is a classic recursive threat that keeps coming back if you keep feeding your graveyard with creatures. The first and most obvious spot I could see Undead Sprinter being played is in Rakdos Sacrifice in Pioneer. Undead Sprinter plays nicely with Cat and Oven. I wouldn't play a high number of Undead Sprinter in my deck, but it will allow you to cast Jegantha, can be discarded to Fable, Blood Tokens, and can continue to provide value in a slightly longer, grindier game. I'm skeptical that it's good enough for the deck, but when I get to testing Pioneer I'm going to throw one or two copies in the deck to see how it plays. It makes sense there, and if it doesn't fit there, it's likely not good enough anywhere. Undead Sprinter is a solid cheap play. While it's a tad too weak, it could be good enough to make the cut. This is a sleeper card with some potential. That's it for this week. There's a lot more to cover with Duskmorn, and we still don't have the full setlist yet. Next week, I'll be back at it to take a peek at whatever cards stand out to me, and then the release will be just around the corner. I'm excited to get my hands on the cards to get back into the swing of things after a long summer. See you then!

It feels like Bloomburrow just hit the shelves (it did), and we're already onto yet another new set! I'm excited about Duskmourn for a couple of reasons. First, I will be back into the swing of things and playing more Magic now that I'm settled into my new house and the kids are back in school. Second, Bloomburrow seems to be a fun set for 60-card Magic, but I was not feeling it for a 40-card format. I've never had fun in typal formats since Lorwyn. The lack of activated abilities on creatures at common forces formats to focus too much on combat, and it's not as enjoyable as putting fun synergies together. Let's look at some of the newly previewed cards. Dollmaker's Shop/Porcelain Gallery First, let's look at a cool new mechanic called rooms. Rooms let you cast either side of the card, which will "unlock" on the battlefield, and then at sorcery speed you can pay the other side's cost to unlock that side of the room. This room is held back with the non-toy clause since it would otherwise be quite strong. It would mostly be playable in an archetype like Boros Convoke where you're playing a lot of one-drops, but it doesn't fit the ideal Convoke plan, as it's essentially a two-mana creature under good conditions and bad if you're unable to trigger the room on turn two. Conceptually these cards are super neat, and I'm hoping we see some of them become more pushed to have a higher impact in Constructed. Kaito, Bane of Nightmares I absolutely love this card. It is so well put together from top to bottom — flavor, power level, just everything. Kaito shows us that ninjas will be back as a thing, and Kaito is the first planeswalker with ninjutsu. Kaito will play well in a deck like that old low-curve Dimir deck with Spyglass Siren and similar creatures, allowing it to hit the battlefield on turn three. You have tons of great options depending on the board state, including drawing an extra card, making an emblem, or stunning a creature for two turns. I hope Kaito is strong enough to see play in Standard. There's some world where it would see play in Pioneer if a low-curve, aggressive Dimir deck was ever playable, but I don't see that happening any time soon. My wish is that we have the supporting cast to push Kaito to the limits because it looks like it will be fun to play with and against, as positioning your battlefield against it will often be on your mind in early turns if you suspect your opponent has it. Come Back Wrong I've been waiting for a design like this for quite some time. The time has come and gone for where this would be playable. However, it will depend on how strong two- and three-drop creatures become. Come Back Wrong allows you to kill creatures with ETB triggers and not lose value. When your opponent plays a creature that draws a card, spending the same amount of mana to kill it and not get a trigger feels bad. This design pushes closer to not feeling as bad, but not all triggers are made the same and won't be as useful as they would in a deck designed around them. Come Back Wrong also triggers death since the token is sacrificed at the end of the turn. It has a small chance of seeing play depending on which creatures players are using. That's not just now, as Come Back Wrong is in the catalog of cards that can be brought back if everyone is casting Mulldrifters every turn. It's a cool card, but it's not good enough to see staple play. There are situations I could see playing this, especially as a one-of with any kind of tutors in your deck. Oddly enough, I'm more drawn to this card because it happens to be better on the draw. Leyline of Hope Leyline of Hope means one thing. Soul Sisters are back! Just kidding. It means Leylines are back. Leyline of Hope seems like it would be strong in a Soul Sisters-style deck because it plays well with that style of lots of cheap one-drop creatures that gain life, ultimately making them quickly grow very sizable. That deck style will be bad without Leyline of Hope in the opener or without any pressure on the opponent in the early game on the life total. While I'm not the biggest fan of this Leyline, it's not useless. I'm excited to see what I assume is the rest of a cycle of Leylines. After all, zero-mana spells are always the most fun spells, and they almost never go too far with them, right? Overlord of the Hauntwoods Overlord of the Hauntwoods has two new mechanics, kind of. I remember when I did the Pro Points podcast with Sam Black and Paulo Vitor that Sam was a huge proponent for having WotC design land tokens to reduce shuffling. This seems to be more the case as we see fewer cards like Evolving Wilds and more lands that come in tapped and you choose a color as they enter. We now have Overlord of Hauntwoods that makes "everywhere" tokens, which are domain lands. Speaking of domain, this card turns on domain immediately and as early as turn three with impending, the other new mechanic. Impending is a twist on suspend, where you get the card into play, but it doesn't turn into a creature until the time counters are gone. I like this implementation of suspend, as it lets your suspend cards have an effect on the game before they hit the ground running. It's worth noting that the time counters are removed on the end step, so while they won't have summoning sickness when they lose their last counter, there will be no confusion as to whether they can attack or not. Overlord of the Hauntwoods is an upgrade to a card like Topiary Stomper but just barely. For any spot where you'd see Stomper, I'd suspect it will be replaced by Overlord because it has bigger stats and doesn't require you to play an excessive amount of basic lands. Screaming Nemesis Boros Reckoner has come a long way. Screaming Nemesis is a fully upgraded 2024 power-level Boros Reckoner. It's easier to cast, has haste, and while it can't keep targeting itself repeatedly with lifelink to gain infinite life, it can make sure the opponent won't gain life ever. Screaming Nemesis looks like a reasonable top-end in a low-curve, aggressive, red deck, but the card will be match-up dependent. It won't play as well against decks with black removal, but it will be excellent against creature decks and decks with damage-based removal. Screaming Nemesis isn't a bad turn-two play off of a Llanowar Elves, but we can probably do better. Ultimately, Screaming Nemesis will likely see some play, but I don't think it's going to perform well unless the Standard format is pushing combat a lot. If that's the case, Nemesis will be a great addition to most red decks. New Common Dual Cycle Lastly, I wanted to call out how much I love this design. We are finally starting to see some designs that benefit the player who's on the draw or losing, rather than cards that pile up advantage and benefit the lucky die roll winner. While this is a subtle addition, I hope we see more cards like this in the future. It's worth noting that there will be spots in Limited where you want to use your opponent's life total as a resource and potentially leave them at 14 rather than 13 on early turns so they can't play their land untapped. That makes for some interesting, sweet plays but don't get too fancy about it, as it will require knowledge of the opponent's deck or hand. Next week, we will likely look at more Duskmourn cards. With the set's release, I'm hoping to get back to streaming. I'm excited to have more time to engage with Magic, and I hope this set is a banger that will reel me back into the game.

We finally got all, or almost all, of the changes we were hoping for. Vintage saw the restriction of Vexing Bauble and Urza's Saga, which isn't relevant to most people. Grief got the axe in both Legacy and Modern alongside Nadu, Winged Wisdom. In a rare transparent post, WotC disclosed they didn't test Nadu in its final form and missed interactions with Shuko and Lightning Greaves. Good on them for not beating around the bush so we know how it happened, which we all assumed, as it's doubtful they'd have tested that kind of combo deck and admitted it was good or fun gameplay they expected. Pioneer had bannings for Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Amalia Benavides Aguirre, which were also banned in Explorer for arena players. Treasure Cruise was noticeably absent from this list. Everyone expected it to go since Phoenix has overperformed for quite some time and Cruise is banned in every other format. A lot of the reasoning behind the bans is how fetch lands, which are banned in Pioneer, easily enable the card. However, as the card pool grows in Pioneer, it gets easier to cast Cruise. Pioneer is my current focus. We have RC DC coming up soon, and while I've been absent from tournament Magic for a long time, I have booked my travel to DC and plan to grind a few LCQs to hopefully get into the main event. I would have skipped the LCQs if Pioneer didn't have any changes. It looked stale, and the decks didn't look that fun. I also expected Amalia to make round timers more of a suggestion than reality because of how easy it was to go to extra games. Phoenix is immediately public enemy number one. If you're playing in the sweaty MTGO leagues or whatever else, I assume it's a lot of Rakdos Midrange, Phoenix, and Lotus Field. Rakdos can shut down Phoenix with hate cards and get an edge, but it will suffer in other matchups and likely end up an average choice if you can predict what slice of the metagame you're going to attack. Phoenix is a great deck, but the environment is going to be hostile. Think about how you'd build a non-Phoenix deck right now. The metagame hasn't evolved yet, and a lot of people will default to these easy choices. Lotus Field can attack this kind of metagame well. It's notorious for having a strong Phoenix matchup, and it will beat up on Rakdos if Rakdos isn't prepared. Lotus Field feels like a great choice in the immediate future. I anticipate many players moving to UW Control. With all these decks combined, we have a balanced and fair metagame. While not banning Cruise is a mistake in the long term, it may work okay in the short term until the metagame balances out, we see a more diverse set of decks, and nothing taking up a huge metagame share. That's when Phoenix starts to creep in as the best deck. It's adaptable, consistent, and powerful. It is easy to customize to attack specific metagames, and it has a solid post-board game plan against graveyard hate. Ultimately, Cruise won't last in the format, so I am curious why they chose not to pull the trigger now. They even said they will check back in on the format in December and called out Cruise and Fable of the Mirror breaker. For what it's worth, banning Fable would be foolish. It's a pillar of the format with fun gameplay. The format has combo and aggro, and Fable is the glue holding many midrange strategies together. Without it, the format would likely feel worse. This is not Standard. It's Pioneer, which has a wider range of strategies that don't involve extremely interactive gameplay. Fable is obnoxious in formats where interaction is the main focal point, but it's a great card in a format like Pioneer. Phoenix will likely be the most played deck in the short term, and then we may see Rakdos enter the conversation for most played deck. Rakdos will almost never be the best choice for a large open field event, however it won't be the worst choice either. For the LCQs and RC, I'm planning to test Phoenix, Lotus Field, and potentially Rakdos Sacrifice depending on how the metagame shakes up. If the floodgates open and we start to see more aggressive decks like Convoke or Mono White Aggro, Rakdos Sacrifice will be a good way to attack those decks much like Phoenix, but it will have a favorable matchup against normal Rakdos Midrange that targets decks like Phoenix. If I had to play a deck in a Pioneer tournament today, I'd choose Lotus Field, as most people won't have gone overboard with the hate yet. That will likely change quickly and the format, at least in theory, will be cyclical with these changes, until we get Duskmourn. Overall, the ban announcements were great. While it's more of a reactive approach since a lot of these bans were a bit overdue, they didn't let things fester too long, and they seem willing to go further if necessary in the future. In the coming weeks I'll focus mostly on Duskmourn and Pioneer as I get ready to play some paper Magic for the first time in a while. Hope to see you there!