#but not thoracle

[sexhaver]

Thoughts on the Commander banlist?

Dockside Extortionist found dead in Miami

[markrosewater]

Hi Mark! I was curious if Wotc ever considered a ban list where cards were only banned from being in a deck together (ie. thoracle consul) or if it was considered, the reason why it wasn’t implemented?

It’s very hard to monitor. We want players to be able to tell if their opponent is playing an illegal deck.

[hyde-the-toad-bard]

To kinda focus on some good when it comes to magic, I just wanna talk about the decks I'm working on.

First off, just finished sleeving up a shalai and hallar deck I've technically had done for a while, but now it's ready to play. What's the plan? Well...

...the plan is to soften the opponents up with burn damage as I create bigger and bigger slimes.

The second deck I'm working on is centered around Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel

The idea here is straightforward. Proliferate as much as possible to get to four chorus counters, then start free casting eldrazi, sea monsters, and extra turn spells. With a silly little combo of free casting enter the infinite and finishing with a thoracle.

These are the main two, but I'm also slowly working towards Riku of Many Paths and Vazi, Keen Negotiator, the latter of which seemingly getting a lot of fun treasure hate to work with.

This was merely an exercise in talking about something I'm actually excited about for the game. Thank you for reading if you did. You get a star!

[phastcast]

Quick name a non-blue card that can interact with thoracle right now

[devoid-of-love]

i have discovered an insane wincon in one of my cedh decks

Hashaton + Tortured Existence on board, Thassa's Oracle in hand, and any other creature in the graveyard (or in hand bc u can discard it to Kitsa after making an arbitrarily large amount of mana) Kitsa + Dramatic Reversal + any UB mana rock to make infinite UB mana 1) discard Thoracle to TE returning creature2 to hand 2) resolve Hashaton's trigger, making a 4/4 token Thoracle. resolve Thoracle trigger 3) discard creature2 to TE returning Thoracle to hand 4) repeat until your devotion to blue is greater than the number of cards in your deck

luckily this is not my primary winline. but its layered enough that i can reasonably go for it. plus its instant speed

[thought-knot]

Commander brackets and game changers thoughts

Wanted to get get out my thoughts on the announcement with of the brackets and the game changer list

Overall I don't really think the brackets are going to change much about peoples deckbuilding. Personally I have already been moving away from running a lot of the game changers in most of my decks so I can have some lower power decks that don't just take take over the game by drawing something like rhystic study and out valuing the table. One thing that I really like is the differentiation of high power and CEDH as those two have very different vibes.

Thoughts on game changers under the cut I will mainly be looking at them from a non CEDH perspective as I don't play CEDH but I wont disregard how important some of the cards are to the format

White Magistrate's fine to be here, no need to ban it and I feel enlightened's in the same boat

Serra's sanctum I could see getting banned, of the three lands that have this effect its the weakest but it is still rather strong

Smothering tithe can burn in hell and I hope it gets banned

I could see Trouble in pairs getting banned as well, its on a similar level to Rhystic study but I think its more annoying to play around

Blue

As much as Rift feels like an iconic part of the format like sol ring I would not be surprised if this is a prelude to banning it

I think expropriate is reasonable to stay unbanned but remain on the list

Force of will and Fierce guardianship both feel right to have here, could see guardianship getting banned in the future and force of negation getting on here to replace it

I go back and forth on if Rhystic study should be banned, it is certainly powerful but it can be played around more than something like smothering tithe and like rift it feels iconic to the format at this point, If it does get banned I don't think I will shed any tears for it though

Thoracle is mostly in the realm of CEDH, I've seen people talk about banning it before to shake up the format but I can't comment too much on that, right to have it on the list debatable if it should be banned

Urza is quite strong and an infinite mana outlet but I think he only get ridiculous when your breaking parity on stuff like winter orb which is mainly something you see in CEDH

Mystical tutor is similar to enlightened tutor, probably the strongest of the narrow tutors but mostly fine the stay on the list

Jin-gitaxis stands out a bit on this list, I dont think he ever needs to be banned but I think putting him on here is a good way to give people an idea how back breaking he is when cheated out

Black

I think citadel is fine to be on the list, its really powerful but sooner or later you will run out of gas

Long term I think banning vamp tutor and leaving the other two tutors on the list is the right call, being an instant makes it so much stronger than the others since it can be used more reactively

Opposition agent can be really frustrating to play against, people who I've talked to that play it in CEDH said that its healthy in the format, it seems like a card that's super frustrating if you just trying to play for fun and it stops you from ramping but necessary and interesting when people are trying to tutor out wincons.

Tergrid super power and frustrating, but mainly as a commander and if you see it in the command zone you know what your getting into

Ad naus lives in CEDH where it basically wins you the game if you resolve it, perhaps its too overcentralizing but I think its fine to live there

Red

I don't think Jeska's needs to get the axe, but I would not be too upset if it did

Breach is mainly a CEDH and I think its fine to exist there as a wincon, and if your not comboing off with it I think it can be an interesting card to play with

Green

Survival of the fittest is kinda crazy, letting you find any creature in you deck while setting up you graveyard for the low cost of one mana on a two mana enchantment, don't think it will ever get banned but this is the type of card that can drag games out with continuous tutoring always allowing for the right answer

Vorinclex is in the same boat as Jin gitaxis, not quite as backbreaking, but also more feasible to ramp into

Gaea's cradle is almost as good as tolarian academy, would not be surprised to see it get banned

Multicolor

all these are here for CEDH as far as I can tell (less sure about grand arbiter) I dont think any of them need to be banned as seeing them as a commander is usually enough to have a conversation. Commander ninjutsu was a big design mistake that I would not mind them requiring commander tax but I think yuriko is a cool commander if you are not super abusing her

Colorless

Glacial chasm seems a bit strange on here compared to the rest, I can kinda see where they are coming from but not sure I agree that it should be here

I would personally be sad if LED got banned since I lucked into one that perfectly fit into my Kozilek deck but it is mainly used for combos so it should at least be on the list

I literally just picked up the one ring but it deserves to be on here and I would not be too upset if it got banned

Tabernacle is not a card I have any experience with but just reading it makes me want it banned

I'm going to cover all the fast mana at once, I could see ancient tomb and mana vault getting banned, neither are quite as good as mana crypt but they still offer really fast acceleration. The rest of them deserve to be on the list for the purposes of setting a standard but there is more of a cost to playing them that I feel keeps them from being banned

Notable missing cards

Worldly tutor seems like a notable exclude considering that the other one mana instant speed tutors are on the list

I could see an argument for heroic intervention either being on or off the list but I am surprised that teferi's protection was not on here

Mana drain seems like it would have been a shoe in on this list too

This one is personal bias because I have faced them a lot with decks that get hard countered by them, but I could see the first two elesh norns being here too

In general cards that outright stop people from playing the game like torpor orb seem like they would be good to put here

By that logic Narset and Notion thief might be good includes too

I could see an argument for all but the green Ikoria free spells to be on here

Overall it feels like there is a bit of a split going on in the list, most of the cards are big in CEDH but some of the cards are only really frustrating at lower power levels and I wonder how the list is going to evolve from these two separate categories.

[urabrask-the-hidden]

I saw you reblogged my question for mtg tips 👀 isn’t niv/curiosity the best combo?

i know its busted (especially +thoracle) and can be a bit of a feel-bad but like idk sometimes i wanna put my deck in my hand and blow my opponents to shit while doing so. god forbid women do anhthing

[orca-iguana]

I find it frankly kind of hilarious that a dude got mad at me for playing no wincon Stax at a paid cEDH tournament. M8. This is a tournament. For money. "It feels bad to play against" genuine skill issue what. BROTHER YOU ARE PLAYING THORACLE CONSULTATION TF U WANT

[inventors-fair]

How the Story Goes: This Week's Winners ~

Our champions this week are @curiooftheheart, @izzet-always-r-versus-u, and @squeezyboi!

@curiooftheheart — Guildpact Ascension (Maze’s End)

This may come as a shock to some people, but in my personal MTG history, Maze’s End was my first “bad” set. And I got a booster box of it with a friend in high school. So...yeesh. All the same, it’s a relief to see the culmination of the set in a major way, i.e. with a card that’s pretty awesome. Mechanically, I won’t call it ‘self-explanatory,’ but I will say that it’s pretty easy to tell what kind of deck it wants to see itself in, and that two-color goodstuff is indeed still good. I would personally word the middle ability slightly differently but your modern sensibilities are definitely stronger than mine because I was thinking of Future Sight as precedent—and they fixed the oracle text! Wow.

All the same, this card’s a pretty iron-clad representation of Jace’s grasp as the Living Guildpact. It’s a mono-blue card, yeah, but it’s how Jace interacts with Ravnica, and the best ways for him to bring the guilds together. He sees everything (ability 1), he has a magical ability to summon the guilds as he sees them (ability 2), and the bringing-together of the guilds creates that much more power in the best way Jace knows how (ability 3). So yeah! It’s pretty darn great. Someone’ll have a fun time with Niv-Mizzet Reborn Gates EDH and this.

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — From Out of Eternity (Invasion of New Phyrexia)

I’m astounded at how clean this card is. If Battles didn’t exist and there were a bunch of weird mechanics that were in its place, this would be the perfect representation of Zhalfir’s return and the battlefield’s representation of that massive incoming. Teferi who? The phasing, the explosive combat, the implications of the attack, all of it is easy to grok and easy to connect. The flavor text’s simplicity does exactly what it wants to and the name is absolutely kick-ass.

As soon as I saw this card, I knew it was a great example of how to do simplicity well. At the very least this can be played on the end step to make something unblockable, but it prevents clogged board states, it changes the way combat works if you want to declare some shenanigans then phase them, it’s a card you pick and then build around without having to force UW control, it stops boardwipes and sweepers—and it requires you to have the army in order to really pull it out, and that’s something this card makes the player want to do. It’s just so easy without being overpowered or convoluted. It’s Zhalfirin and climactic in a way that MOM wishes it could’ve been.

@squeezyboi — Attack of the Mage Hunters // Professor’s Protection (Mage Hunter’s Onslaught)

I looked at my notes, then at this card, then back at my notes, and then here again, and I found myself realizing that yes indeed, this is exactly the kind of assignment I was thinking of. You took a story moment, moved it out of time, and used a future mechanic to that moment to retell it from the opposite perspective. Like, what more can one ask for? Battles aren’t quite supported on MSE, I don’t think, hence the lack of a mockup (sorry!) but all the same, I find myself hard-pressed to find criticism aside from the fact that the text might be kinda cramped.

I really like the anti-wizard sweep as well as the cool anti-Mage Hunter’s Onslaught that happens on the flip side. That professorial quote almost makes Lorehold cool again! ... I kid, Quintorius does that already. He’s a nice lad. Casting spells to weaken the siege feels awesome, and getting to a point where you’re overwhelming the board is pretty awesome. Exiling to get spirits without having to worry about getting burned out? Heck yeah. Spoils of the Vault is too far a combo for the flipside to matter too much and nobody’s going to Thoracle that, anyway. If they’re not playing burn, you get to just make your army, after having swept them away, and then the school is safe once more. Fantastic job bringing this out of the woodwork. Quite unexpected.

Woo! Runners-up and commentary to follow. —@abelzumi

[sexhaver]

trying to get into cEDH deckbuilding is so frustrating because i keep finding commanders that combo out in cool and unique ways, but then realize (in this order) that:

wait, that combo costs like 4/5/6 mana, how do i get that much mana by turn 2/3?

oh right, by proxying spending literally $1000 on various Moxen, duh, why would i think i can get into a new competitive format without selling my kidney to afford a manabase, silly me

[if not running blue] ah shit, wait, even if i do get the Magical Christmas Land draw and go off on turn 2, i have no interaction and fold to 20 different common answers that everyone knows to hold onto as soon as i tell them who my commander is. why am i not picking a commander that can just run Thoracle?

[if running blue] wait, why am i jumping through all these hoops when Thoracle is faster + more consistent?

why am i even trying to build a combo around my commander when picking some random UBx commander and building around Thoracle + Consultation + tutors + counters is so much more effective?

why am i even trying to get into cEDH if every decklist is solved and most of them aren't as good as a generic wincon not even tied to a specific commander?

why am i even alive?

[devoid-of-love]

Signed Foil MB2 Thoracle Artist Proof

look at my cards boy

Magic players will be like "I'm normal about this magic character" and then you look at their battlefield and they have a card of that character, in a sleeve of that character, on a playmat of that character and they're keeping track of life totals with a phone with a wallpaper of that character

Sometimes they might even have multiple versions of that character as different cards on the battlefield. If they're one of the freaks they might have even read the LORE about that character

[a-magical-recap]

MTG Pro Tour - Regional Championships US and Australia-New Zealand

The Modern Regional Championships continued last weekend (Mar 8-9) in the second of two RCs in the US and in the Australia-New Zealand region.

Those with top placements at these events will earn invites to Pro Tour Final Fantasy, and will be competing for seats at the World Championship later this year. Congrats to Jesse Robkin and Thomas Bot for winning at these events!

(Tournament coverage continued under the cut.)

With Spotlight: Modern this weekend in the Netherlands, these RCs give us a look at Modern's metagame going into that event. What we can see from RC USA II and RC Aus-NZ is that Mox Opal continues to be a very good card.

The results of RC USA II were dominated by Grinding Breach decks, the archetype which most directly takes its power from the recent unbanning of Mox Opal. You can read more about that archetype here, and you can read about its dominance at RC China here.

6 of the top 8 decks at RC USA II were Grinding Breach, including both finalists (Jesse Robkin and Corey Burkhart) and semifinalist Christian Baker. Louis Salerno, Jake Stine, and Victor Hawkins also made the top 8 playing this archetype.

Grinding Breach had a more moderate showing at RC Aus-NZ: 2 of the top 8. It was played by semifinalists Zen Miyaji-Thorne and Sebastian Vearncombe.

Robkin, Burkhart, Stine, and Vearncombe played the Grapeshot version of the deck, while Baker, Salerno, Hawkins, and Miyaji-Thorne played the Thoracle version.

Baker, Stine, and Vearncombe played the new Stock Up from Aetherdrift in their lists.

The archetype that had a stronger showing at RC Aus-NZ was Eldrazi Ramp, which you can read about here, making up 3 of the top 8 there (and not placing at RC USA). Winner Thomas Bot as well as Shivan4RR and Henry Sams made the top 8 playing versions of the archetype.

Sams played the Red/Green version which has been popular post-Modern Horizons 3. Bot and Shivan played a new version which plays straight colorless. It has a similar gameplan to the Red/Green version, but instead ramps itself with Mind Stone and, what else, Mox Opal. This allows the deck to more easily play Glaring Fleshraker, Mystic Forge, and an Urza's Saga package. It also makes the deck slightly more consistent, not having to worry about getting colors.

The two remaining decks from RC USA II were:

Semifinalist Joe Leo playing Energy Aggro. You can read about that archetype here.

Brandon Mcarthur playing Amulet Titan. You can read about that archetype here.

The three remaining decks from RC Aus-NZ were:

Finalist Nicholas Talbot playing Hollow One. This aggressive deck looks to fill its graveyard using discard effects like Burning Inquiry and Faithless Looting. This allows it to quickly power out big creatures: the titular Hollow One, alongside Nethergoyf and the new Marauding Mako.

Jinhao Young and Christopher Tong playing versions of Frog Tempo. This deck looks to use Psychic Frog, one of the best aggressive threats in Modern right now, alongside powerful removal in blue and black like Counterspell and Fatal Push. Since the deck already has a heavy spells and graveyard theme, Frog Tempo can also rely on a backup plan of Murktide Regent to secure a victory.

[the-worst-gayest-clown-ever]

Hey tumblr, thanks for inviting me to ur trans furry group, I’m trans, I love furries, many are among my best friends. We don’t do furry stuff together tho, idk anything abt it and it’s not rlly a culture I desire to be in deep with. It’s just not my vibe. I appreciate that u recognized me as trans, websites suck at that usually but yea, sorry , swing and a miss on the furry part. Just a regular skin girl with a lil hair on her head to put into hairdos and not of other hair besides. I love yall, many of u are great artists, I feel very warm when ppl decide what animal I am as an outsider to ur community.

I post abt magic and warhammer and Luigi. Give me trans thoracle combos. Get me on trans girls who play labman wincons. I want the group chat for girls who like space marines. I want a group for gay ppl who touch grass despite having tumblr account. I don’t know furry culture at all besides that most of yall are nice to me. Again tho, good job clocking me as trans, definitely would be awkward to be recommended the cis furry group.

[devoid-of-love]

okay so ive been brewing a cedh deck for a lil bit. its a kydele/tymna deck

step 1: cast peer into the abys step 2: tap kydele for ~40 mana we've drawn 40 cards and made 40 mana and can probably piece together a win

step 1: cast necrodominance step 2: tap kydele for ~30 mana step 3: emergence zone/borne upon a wind this ones a bit trickier because we need a way to dump our hand at instant speed

it has a one ring combo plan as well with derevi/seedborne muse/minamo as well

and all the usual cedh combos thoracle/consult my beloved

[devoid-of-love]

once again the problem is people using thoracle as a wincon in casual. this is by far one of the most interesting win lines ive seen in cedh and you need to run several bad cards to enable it

[the-worst-gayest-clown-ever]

I’m done apologizing for my magic the gathering party fouls. Yes I play land hate, yes I play mill, I’m about to build gishath so I can throw dinosaurs at people because I’m mean, I love counterspells and I had a nadu deck. I’m not sorry I play thoracle combos, I’m not sorry I paid out the ads for a craterhoof just so I could watch your face fall when I cast it with 200 tokens on the board and kill everyone at the table. My next deck after gishath? Infect mutate, fuck y’all suck a weenie