andrew

andrew, 1 month ago

Oy another Eldrazi Temple for Modern. Even “protects” a big boy for later, assuming it doesn’t get destroyed.

andrew, 1 month ago

Wow is this the first completely land-based land tutor? I wonder if this goes into Amulet or even Legacy Lands? Legacy is running Elvish Reclaimer now and this kind of does the same thing, albeit doesn’t represent a clock at all if need be.

andrew, 1 month ago

Importantly just the third non-Vesuva/Stage/etc Locus for Cloudpost.

andrew, 1 month ago

Is this the “fixed” Recurring Nightmare? Looks like there’s a subtheme of reserved list variants. Seems cool and dangerous.

andrew, 1 month ago

Coverage starts at 2pm ET today (and tomorrow)! On Sunday it’s an hour earlier at 1pm ET.

andrew, 1 month ago

Holy crap if Brainstorm is now Modern legal

andrew, 1 month ago

Amazing write up as usual, thanks for sharing this! Absolutely love that it’s favored against domain.

I plan to go through it more fully when I can test drive the deck but initially out of curiosity, did you try a bant version or version running green at all? I noticed you mention they get to the game plan a bit faster and thats the one I’ve typically seen, just wondering!

andrew, 1 month ago

Yeah probably by design to keep that play pattern out of the older formats 😕

andrew, 1 month ago

Here’s the screenshot of the now-removed Archidekt page

https://mtgzone.com/pictrs/image/3c96897b-caa5-4cf2-a479-1deef6a07674.png

andrew, 1 month ago

It’s a cool interaction with manaless spells and undercosted ones like Days Undoing, but I just cannot see this being enough to make UW control at all relevant in Modern again sadly 😞 I think it just needs to be doing something better than this but hopefully it helps.

andrew, 1 month ago

36 artifacts with [[Boom Box]] and [[Territory Forge]] as the land destruction spells. This is the state of land destruction in this game! It didn’t need to be this way 😭

I remember [[Avalanche Riders]] and ramping into [[Rain of Salt]] in my artifact/red Ponza deck back in saga block constructed ffs. I realize I’m in the minority on this one but I think resource denial is a core part of the game that’s been removed at the game’s detriment.

andrew, 1 month ago

Link their updated philosophy page: mtgcommander.net/…/the-philosophy-of-commander/

Seems pretty reasonable, if not fairly neutered. Social, creative, and stable are their tenants and it seems like just a reaffirmation of how they love handled changes and their ban list over the past decade.

I think for the most part as someone who is a pretty casual/infrequent commander player, the ban list seems pretty well maintained. I like that they don’t ban cards for accessibility reasons and they seem to want to genuinely promote a fun environment. I honestly mostly wish WotC would stop creating so much directly for Commander, that seems to be the biggest issue if any.

andrew, 1 month ago

Wow wasn’t expecting that but I’m guessing it has something to do with the recent sets being poorly received? The estimated drop in sales can’t be helping and I’m wondering if this is in anticipation of a poor earnings call by Hasbro.

andrew, 2 months ago

Dangit! Secret reach is one of the few ways this causal sneaks wins in limited 😞

andrew, 2 months ago

Wow congrats!! What deck/format did you play the most?

andrew, 2 months ago

🙌 Love it! Seriously awesome job

andrew, 2 months ago

Relevant info on the streams:

• Pro Tour Thunder Junction will be streamed all three days of the event, April 26–28, at twitch.tv/magic.
• On Friday and Saturday—April 26 and 27—broadcast begins at 2 p.m. ET (8 p.m. CET // 3 a.m. JST 4/27–28) with three rounds of https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/outlaws-of-thunder-junction Draft followed by five rounds of Standard Constructed.
• On Sunday, April 28 for the Top 8 playoff, broadcast begins at 1 p.m. ET (7 p.m. CEST // 2 a.m. JST 4/29) with all four quarterfinal matches, followed by semifinals matches then the finals of Pro Tour Thunder Junction.
• While competitors begin their Friday and Saturday at 9 a.m. PT on-site, broadcast begins later in the day at 11 a.m. PT (2 p.m. ET) with a featured drafter to follow into their Round 1 gameplay. They’ll catch up throughout the day to avoid downtime.
• Sunday Top 8 playoff broadcast begins at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) showing a full quarterfinal match and then as many games from other quarterfinal matches as possible, moving on to a full semifinal match (and as much of the remaining semifinals match) then the complete finals.

andrew, 2 months ago

Love prowess as an archetype and Slickshot is the card I’m most excited about in the set. Couldnt’t believe it’s also a wizard. Plot enables some huge turns and can really hamper an opponent who leaves up mana t2 to remove a creature.

I think those cards definitely make it worth a shot, I just wish there were a bit more wizard payoffs in Standard like there are in the older formats.

andrew, 2 months ago

I also don’t know Garfield’s reasoning for it but based on what I’ve read about how he viewed deck building and card acquisition he may have wanted the game to be more fluid or natural, like just use what you have or what you can locally trade for. Ante may have been natural for him as a way to get cards for your deck or have decks change over time.

It also may be relevant that other games at the time that got popular, like Pogs, would be played for keeps or for fun too. Marbles as well I believe. That may have been a more normal part of games, especially those with a collectibility aspect to them. I never played Pogs for keeps either though and hated that aspect too.

What Garfield is missing a bit is that better or older players can take advantage of worse or younger players, and it can create tons of feel bad if you lose a prized card. I think the trade offs just are not there at all and would love to find out more about why he liked it so much.

andrew, 2 months ago

Always makes me laugh: youtube.com/watch?v=diJR5x3l0Og