andrew

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

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

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.

Link their updated philosophy page: https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

Awesome and long overdue addition to Timeless/Historic!

Wow this crushes token strategies. Seems really good in EDH, particularly with the cycling fallback. Also seems great in Vintage too oddly.

Wow is this a “fixed” [[Memory Jar]] in red? Memory Jar says until “the beginning of the next end step” which lets you time it for yourself, this one seems to always give the opponent a turn with the cards too. If you crack it on your opponent’s turn then they get to play at sorcery speed and you wouldn’t, and if you crack it on your turn then both players get to play their cards during a full turn.

Cool effect but this feels like it was 100% designed for Commander. This is absolutely unplayable in Limited and I’m guessing there is nowhere near enough standard support to even field a deck, let alone a competitive one.

Cards like this are one of the reasons I really dislike how they design for Commander first these days, they could at least just stick her in the Commander precon.

*ETA: not unplayable in Limited, it’s still a 4/4 lifelinker for 4cmc but it’s in 3 colors and not worth splashing for.