#this post is actually about an mtg card

[lunapwrites]

Nothing worse than when your partner says something really fucking funny and you go to immortalize it in no context text form and you have already forgotten the punchline.

Bean please for the love of God can I have at least one of my brain cells back. I am begging you.

[sexhaver]

What makes Jeweled Bird so bad?

first, some context: wayyyyy back in the stone ages when dinosaurs walked the earth and MTG first released, it was envisioned as less of a serious competitive card game people would explicitly try to minmax and more of a fun little diversion for your D&D group to play while you wait for Jared to get off his shift so you can actually start your campaign. this explains a lot of design choices that seem backasswards 30 years later. for instance, yes, Richard Garfield knew Black Lotus was unbelievably busted, but figured it was fine to print since it's not like people would do anything crazy like buy up hundreds of packs/hunt down singles on a secondary marketplace and play the game competitively for cash prizes.

one of the wackiest outcomes of this design philosophy was the concept of "playing for ante", an optional game mode/modifier where each player would begin the game by putting the top card of their library directly into "the ante", a pile of cards off to the side. whoever won the game won permanent, real-life ownership of all cards in the ante. basically "playing for keeps" but in a TCG instead of with Pogs or those weird tiny cardboard Beyblade tops that came in chip bags.

as you might guess from just reading that description, it was pretty wildly unpopular with most of the playerbase at the time and only got less popular as time went on. people didn't want to risk losing their cards, especially once the game became established and some of those cards were worth, like, actual amounts of money. and then there was the variance - it was entirely possible for you to ante up your only copy of an expensive card (meaning you were even less likely to win because now you can't draw it) while your opponent anted a basic land.

partially due to this, but mostly due to WOTC lawyers learning about the concept of "gambling laws" and WOTC PR learning about the optics of getting children into gambling, ante was officially removed from all sanctioned MTG tournaments very early into the game's lifespan (in fact i think this might have been enshrined into law before the actual first official tournament) and mostly memoryholed from the comprehensive rules, outside of section 407, which leads with this literal legal disclaimer:

there were 9 cards printed before this that explicitly reference "the ante" and do something unique to the cards in it. all of these cards have been errata'd to include the rules text "remove this card from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante" and banned from LITERALLY ALL SANCTIONED FORMATS, including Vintage, the format whose entire appeal is "we never ban anything" (laughs in Lurrus).

okay so with the context out of the way we can start getting into why Jeweled Bird specifically is A Bad Card

first, the obvious: it's an ante card, which means you can't play it unless you're playing for ante, and if you ask anyone at your LGS to play for ante they will try to surreptitiously call the nearest retirement home to report an escapee from their memory care unit. so right off the bat it's quite literally unplayable as an MTG card (ante doesn't even work right in cube drafts, usually the last solace of jank-ass mechanics), which is not a great start.

now that we've established that ante cards are bad because they're effectively banned everywhere, let's assume we're living in some bizarro land where you've managed to convince a handful of friends to play in your personal MTG tournament bracket that allows ante. even then, all but one (don't worry we'll get to that one in a second) of the banned "ante cards" are just. unplayably bad. like absolute dogshit.

ok actually you know what i hadn't looked over all the ante cards in a while before typing up this post and now that i have i think Jeweled Bird is arguably the third or fourth best one out of the lot, and it's STILL unplayably bad in a modern context. it's effectively 1 colorless mana to draw a card, which is theoretically decent in some colors nowadays if you squint but would have actually been notably good back in its heyday. it actually gets pretty close to what WOTC was trying to go for with most of these ante card designs: you get a powerful effect (card draw for 1 colorless mana in an era when even blue had to jump through hoops for a rate that good outside of Ancestral Recall), but at the cost of adding something to the ante, but since the effect is so powerful, you should ideally be able to win the game off of it and completely negate the downside of adding your stuff to the ante.

you know what, fuck it, let's just go through the other ante cards from worst to best:

this card looks absolutely batshit until you get to the last sentence and realize it's effectively 6 mana to force your opponent to ante a card. if you spend 6 mana doing effectively nothing, you are not winning the game or that ante

this one is this low because in 99% of circumstances it's 10 mana over two turns to burn your opponent for 10. however, it takes the edge over Amulet of Quoz because 1. it just bypasses the ante zone entirely to literally steal the card directly, outcome of the game be damned 2. if your opponent has 9 or less life, they have to either let you steal their card or concede on the spot (which means they lose their ante) and 3. if i'm reading this ruling correctly you can set up the 9-or-less-life scenario with a TOKEN COPY of Bronze Tablet and give them a literal bar napkin with a doodle on it in exchange for their judge promo foil Elesh Norn:

so for 6 mana, you can heal yourself back to full at the cost of anteing an additional card. if that was all this card did, it would still be pretty bad, but the icing on this shitcake is that your opponent can just. also do that. but without spending their entire turn to cast a 6 mana spell. so now you're both on equal footing lifewise, but they have their entire turn to gain tempo advantage after you spent your turn healing them. and you gave them another one of your cards once you inevitably lose because of this. i guess theoretically you could run it in a super heavy control deck that aims to win via mill as a safety valve against aggro? idk man

this card effectively does nothing, but doing nothing for 3 mana is still an improvement over "doing nothing for 6 mana", "doing 10 damage for 10 mana over two turns", and "helping your opponent for 6 mana". i guess if you're really confident that your deck can win anyways (perhaps because of another card on this list) you could use this to force your opponent to ante another card for you to win? mostly this one is this high up here because "if the opponent doesn't concede the game immediately" is the funniest possible opening to a MTG card's rules text. like that's always true. you could add that to quite literally every card ever printed and it would change nothing other than making the game way funnier

okay so this is a three mana 1/1 with an ability that costs three MORE mana to activate that effectively just makes your opponent ante a card. i know it looks like it destroys and then literally steals an artifact, which would actually be a pretty good effect since it impacts the board (something none, but the entire thing is countered by anteing a card so that's what's gonna happen every time. at least this one can chump block

okay now we're starting to get into cards that at least make you think a little bit before deciding they suck (Jeweled Bird would go around here)

this scores higher than Timmerian Fiends for several reasons. obviously, a 4 mana 3/3 is a much better rate than a 3 mana 1/1, and the sac ability being free (other than a tap) makes it a lot more usable. the effect is even debateably good in red specifically: either it "draws" (literally legally steals irl) you a card, or it does 10 burn to the opponent's face. however, it does lose points due to the part where you, uh, have to give it away after using it once, win or lose. basically this is like Bronze Tablet but 6 mana cheaper and on a body that can actually theoretically do something. also lol at the "or conceding game" clause like Demonic Attorney, i really want to start seeing that wording on every card ever printed

now this might seem similar to Demonic Attorney at first glance, but the Oracle text makes it make more sense: "You own target card in the ante. Exchange that card with the top card of your library." notably, like Efreet and Tablet, this swap in ownership happens regardless of the outcome of the game, and unlike those two cards, you don't have to trade Darkpact itself for the card you're stealing. stealing your opponent's card out of the ante does mean that now both of the cards in there belong to you, meaning you have twice as much to lose, but hey, you just stole (and got to draw and cast, lol) your opponent's shit. "do what you must, i have already won" type beat

as powerful as Darkpact is, it's still only the second best ante card, and it is not even in the same zip code as the first best. ever heard of a little card named Ancestral Recall? draws 3 cards for one mana? and that's such a busted effect you're only allowed to legally run one copy in the one format it isn't explicitly banned in?

hahahahahahahahahaha holy shit sorry every time i remember this card i cackle at it a bit. what do you MEAN "discard your hand and draw 7 for 1 mana"?? discarding is an UPSIDE these days! people have unironically run One With Nothing, which is this card except for all the words after "discard your current hand". that "add the first drawn to the ante" bit might as well be flavor text because if you manage to lose after casting this then your deck was never even theoretically capable of winning in the first place. jesus christ.

[jacebeleren]

It bothers me so much that the only transfem rep in mtg cards is this like. Soldier military woman, like 'ooh look at this guy's we made a trans woman who's a part of a war machine' fantastic thank you magic very original

=========

Okay.

First of all, there is no "our" interpretation of the text. My thoughts are my own, and your thoughts are your own. Some of our thoughts might align, but I will not allow you to speak for me.

Second, I am sorry you feel so disappointed in the current state of transgender representation in Magic. I understand your concerns and I think they're valid concerns.

Third, your concerns being valid does not mean I agree with what you have to say, though. Don't come into my inbox complaining unless you're ready for me to honestly respond. Respectfully, your approach to these concerns makes it clear to me that you don't actually understand what you're talking about.

It's apparent that you follow me or have at least seen many of my posts. You appear to respect my opinions / analysis (at least regarding Jace and Tezzeret). So listen to me when I say this:

What constitutes 'good' representation is context-dependent, and it's not something you alone get to decide.

Yes, Alesha is a "soldier military woman", as you said. I understand that you have this complaint because you believe this makes Alesha an example of the stereotype that trans women are violent. But context matters. What you're failing to consider is the fact that she comes from the Mardu Horde, a faction on Tarkir inspired by the Mongol hordes of real-world history. In this context, Alesha isn't presented as violent because she's a trans woman. She's violent because she literally comes from a warrior clan based on one of the greatest military forces in human history. And honestly, with Magic being a combat-centric game, she's not any more violent than any non-Mardu Legends, either.

Do you seriously think a story about a trans woman fighting to proudly declare her trans identity in her culture and later becoming the accomplished and well-respected leader of her clan is bad representation? Does the fact that she's a warrior really outweigh the rest of the lovingly crafted trans narrative they created for her, to you?

It's fine if you feel that way. You don't have to like Alesha or her story. But just because something wasn't made for your taste doesn't mean it's bad writing / bad representation.

Anyway, I highly recommend you read Alesha's story, "The Truth of Names", since it seems like you haven't read it yet. It's a fantastic story-- the most beloved short story in all of Magic, actually. It was the most-read article on the entire Magic website for like 5 years, according to WOTC.

And if you're interested in learning more about transfem characters in Magic who aren't Alesha, I recommend you read about Xantcha, who first appears in the novel "Planeswalker".

Next, I need to make things clear about Ashiok.

Ashiok was never intended to be nonbinary representation. Ashiok was created to be a mysterious, unknowable villain. What makes Ashiok special is that we are not mean to know anything about Ashiok. We do not know Ashiok's species or plane of origin, for example. Another part of that element of mystery is not knowing Ashiok's gender, or how Ashiok identifies. Ashiok's original style guide from Theros explicitly instructs people to not use any pronouns for Ashiok at all (which I still follow because old habits are hard to break.) Official Magic sources did not begin to use they/them pronouns for Ashiok until 2022, in the story "A Garden of Flesh" (another excellent story, BTW.) And they only started using they/them for Ashiok because it is really hard to write a story where the character is mentioned that many times without pronouns.

All this to say: Ashiok as intentional nonbinary representation is certainly not the narrative WOTC is pushing.

Yes, there are many fans of Ashiok who interpret Ashiok as nonbinary, but those are their thoughts and you need not concern yourself with that, if it bothers you so.

As for Niko, it's weird that you say they're "non-existent" in Magic story when 2 of the 5 side stories ("Know Which Way the Wind is Blowing" and "Aim Through the Target") in their debut set Kaldheim were entirely focused on Niko. They're also a starring main character in 15 of the 25 issues of the BOOM! Studios Magic comics.

I'm glad you like my analysis of Jace and Tezzeret as transgender characters. Thank you for that, genuinely. But I want you to understand that the reason I have these interpretations is because I love Magic Story. And more importantly, I actually read it. I love Magic Story, and I have so much respect for the Magic Narrative team and the work they do.

What most people don't understand is that the Magic Narrative Team is in fact very careful and very loving in their approach to queer representation. You may not know this about me, but I'm friends with A LOT of people who formerly or currently work on Magic / Magic Story. Knowing these people personally, I know for a fact that the Magic creative Team does not create queer characters for "diversity points". They're not just checking boxes. The Magic creative team creates queer characters because the Magic creative team is full of queer people and allies who want to tell stories that reflect their own + fans' experiences. And they have to constantly fight to include more / better queer representation in Magic. They want good queer representation in Magic just as much as we do.

Am I going to defend everything they do? No! Are they perfect? No! They are just people. They make mistakes and they have blind spots. For example, in my essay about my analysis of Jace as a trans man, I explain that the reason my interpretation means so much to me is because there is currently zero meaningful representation for trans men in Magic canon. There are zero transgender male characters in Magic canon who have names. That's a HUGE blind spot considering the number of canon trans characters! That's something that disappoints and upsets me.

I'm not afraid to criticize Magic Story, and I do so very often. But I am critical of Magic story because I love it. My criticism does not equal hatred or unhappiness.

Sorry to hear that their efforts at including better trans representation in Magic would piss you off. I'm sorry that you've given up.

Lastly, I think Liliana is cis, but that's just my headcanon.

[kaiasky]

ok so mtg objects are things that exist in zones, which includes your hand/the battlefield/the stack. the stack is a limbo where played cards go while they wait to happen. however, abilities (like creature's abilities, e.g.) also go on the stack (and are objects while they're on the stack.) while instant/sorcery spells go to the graveyard or battlefield when they resolve, abilities cease to exist.

this is like.... yknow, it's like saying "creepers from minecraft, and the damage they do when they blow up, are both mobs". so obviously the number 1 thing to ask is. "can i somehow get an ability object out of the stack before it gets destroyed." (the number 2 thing is "can i put a non-spell, non-ability in the stack")

There are certain rules about what objects can enter what zones. instants and sorceries can't enter the battlefield even if the rules say so. but this does NOT forbid abilities from existing on the battlefield, if you can get them there. Nor do state based effects remove them.

this is, if possible, definitely unintended behavior. by my reading, it would become a new token ability permanent (every object on the battlefield is a permanent, and every permanent is either a card or token and every non-card permanent is a token.) it would have rules text of its ability--but maybe not the *ability* of its ability? im not sure on that aspect

so again my reading is that this is allowed by the rules. However, WOTC has somehow been careful enough to never print any cards with the phrasing you'd need to do it. or I just dont know enough to see it?

the closest we can get, afaict is:

This first one should put an ability-object into exile. unfortunately the only things that can pull something out of exile must be *cards* (which makes sense; tokens are destroyed when they enter the graveyard or exile), and an ability-object is not a card.

potentially, if an ability-object were to have its ability and not just the text of its ability (i could make a much longer post about how ive gone back and forth on this bit): abilities normally only trigger on the battlefield, unless they specify otherwise. if you had a card with an ability like "You can use this while it's exiled: do some shit" then maybe the ability-object would be able to be used.

anyways i am putting this into the world with the hope that somebody can complete the puzzle, or tell me "oh yeah that's happened before actually" (or tell me what im missing about the rules :( ) please bear in mind i know shit all about magic gathering

[geddy-leesbian]

a while back @highball66 made a post about Leon being a nerd that would probably play MTG, and apparently the concept got lodged in my brain so here's a drabble of Leon and Luis meeting at an MTG prerelease because those two are def nerds like that

I had their twink era RE2 era in mind when writing this, but not sure how much it actually matters

Leon had been apprehensive about coming here, expecting the crowd to be the stereotypical basement dwellers with noticeably bad hygiene. But he still came, because he's brand new to this city and didn't know anyone, or have any other ideas for how to meet people. Well, that's not entirely true. He knows some people, his coworkers. The problem is just that his naive belief that cops are morally upstanding folks that help people has been shattered beyond repair, and he has zero desire to spend any time with them outside of work. (He doesn't want to go to work with them either, but he has to, until he gets another job lined up.)

So it wasn't like Leon had anything to lose coming here, just a faint possibility to gain something.

There were a few of the basement dwellers Leon expected, but there was also something he absolutely did not expect: A very gorgeous man with tan skin, soft gray eyes, and a smile that's just about blinding. He's sitting across the room, and Leon keeps stealing glances at him. He’s clearly very experienced, with how fast he sorts his cards into his piles. Leon looks down at his own cards to sort and when he looks back up the man is already done with his own deck, counting to make sure he had the right amount, quickly sleeving it, and then scooping up the cards he wasn't playing to put them away.

He stands up and starts striding across the room, and Leon has to make a conscious effort to not stare and drool at the man. He's taller than Leon thought. He's got long, lean legs and the most perfect hips Leon has ever seen. And then somehow he's talking to Leon.

“Mind if I sit here?” He has an accent. It's hot. Leon had set his bag on the chair next to him, but moves it so the ridiculously hot stranger can take a seat. “This is your first time coming here? First time playing..?”

“Do I stick out that bad?”

“Not really. It's just that I know I would have recognized you if you'd been here before. I could never forget such a pretty face,” Did this guy seriously just call Leon pretty? In a warm, genuine tone, like it's actually a compliment? Leon is quite used to comments like that, but in a derogatory manner. "Compliments" hurled at him in mocking tones. “But I will admit, you do look a little lost. Do you want help building your deck?”

“Yeah, sure. I've played before, back in high school, but never made any decks. Just played with decks my friends would let me borrow. I wanted to have my own, but my foster parents thought the game was basically devil worship and would've been dragging my ass to the pastor if they ever found cards under their roof.”

Leon worries that might have been a little too personal too fast, but he's not sure Tall Hot Guy was even listening. He doesn't say anything, and seems laser focused on Leon's cards.

“Off to a good start, with your sorting,” In the time Tall Hot Guy made a deck, all Leon managed to do was open all his packs and sort them by color. Tall Hot Guy starts going through the piles, picking out some cards to set aside. “Prereleases are good for beginners. New cards, new mechanics, so even people with experience won't know everything. Besides, you're not even the only new player here. Now, I think you have enough for mono red, so we keep it simple and do that, if there isn't anything else you'd rather do?”

“That's fine, whatever you think is good. You're the expert.”

The “help” is less help and more just him doing everything. But he does talk as he goes through cards and starts laying them out. Leon is fine with the situation.

“Mana curve, it's important. This is your deck laid out from lowest to highest mana cost,” So there is a method to the madness. He figured there was a reason they were laid out the way they were, but hadn't figured it out. “You want variety, because you want to be doing things every turn. You need big win condition cards, but you don't want to just be sitting by idly waiting several turns to get enough mana for them, you need small things too. Of course you can get unlucky enough to not draw your lower cards early, but at least the odds are better if you have a good mix of low and high cards.”

Tall Hot Guy finishes the spells in Leon's deck and gets up to fetch the basic lands it will need from the shop's communal land station, and grabs something out of his bag too. He needs to stop standing up, because every time Leon really struggles to not ogle him. Curse those stupid skintight jeans.

Leon puts away the unused cards, except for one stack Tall Hot Guy made for reasons Leon really can't figure out. It seems so random, cards from every color.

“Hey, what's this stack of cards next to the deck?”

“Oh, those are just cards that I think will maybe be worth something,” After putting the lands on top of Leon’s deck, Tall Hot Guy starts putting the other stack in card sleeves. “These are extra sleeves you can have, to keep these in good shape in case you do want to sell them at some point.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“I've already told you that you have a pretty face, right? I'm a sucker for a pretty face. I want you to have fun playing here, so you come back. Now, let me give you some pointers on what your deck wants to do!”

Leon hadn't expected this guy to actually stay and keep talking. He said Leon wasn't the only new player, so he figured once he got Leon's deck together he'd go over and help out the other newbies. But no. The only thing that Tall Hot Guy seems interested in is just talking Leon's ear off. This isn't a general newbie thing, there's something about Leon specifically. He barely absorbs a word he's saying, he's too busy staring at his stupid perfect face and messy curly hair he wants to touch.

Leon jumps up the second a game store employee calls out that deck building time is up and pairings are ready, because he really needs to get the hell away from this guy that's making him feel things his recent ex-girlfriend never could. He gets a slip of paper with his name and the name of his opponent: Dr. Lewis Serra. He looks around, totally lost, because he doesn't know anyone. Of course, Tall Hot Guy approaches him again.

“Do you need help finding your opponent?”

“First my deck, now helping me find someone, you're a real knight in shining armor, aren't you?” Was that flirty? Doesn't knight in shining armor usually have some romantic connotations? Did Leon actually just flirt with this guy? He's pretty sure he did. Christ. “You know who, uh, Dr. Lewis Serra is?”

“You're looking at him. Your knight just so happens to be your first opponent too. Guess it's just you and me, pretty boy,” The words make Leon's face heat up, but thankfully Lewis turns his back to Leon quickly, to lead him to a table. He just hopes and prays the blushing will have subsided before he sits down and faces Lewis. “By the way, the name is actually Luis Serra. The name on the slip is a stupid nickname that just won't die.”

“There a story behind it?”

“I suppose, depending on how you want to define story. Some idiot I played once thought that my name was pronounced like Lewis, and everyone else thought it was really funny. That's it. Like I said, stupid.”

“What about the Dr. part?”

“Oh, that, ah, that actually isn't a nickname. To toot my own horn, I was a real child prodigy. I got my PhD in biology when I was 16,” Oh great. This guy is tall, hot, and insanely smart. Be still Leon's beating heart. “Normally I'm humble and never introduce myself with the title, I don't want to seem pretentious. And I like to keep my work and personal life separate. It being on the slip is not my choice. I've asked them to stop putting it here, but of course they just think it's funny that it annoys me!”

“Well, there are worse nicknames. My coworkers call me Leon Stupid Kennedy.”

“Wow. Okay. You win, yanqui, I have no right to complain about being Dr. Lewis,” Luis lifts his life die up. “High roll? Or I can just let you go first, since you're a beginner?”

“Such a gentleman, guess I'll just go first.”

Leon's deck is as straightforward as Luis promised. He plays mountains. He taps mountains and casts creature spells that he attacks with. There are some instant and sorcery spells in there too, but not a lot and they're pretty simple, mostly just kill spells.

Luis's deck is complicated, which is no surprise. Just about every single card he plays triggers some combo on cards he already has out, and he's constantly drawing cards, scrying, tapping and untapping things, putting counters on shit… It's impossible for Leon to keep up with. But he doesn't really need to. It doesn't matter what Luis is up to, his deck is meant to just keep attacking regardless of what his opponent is doing. And it… Actually works? He thought he was going to get his ass handed to him, but then he gets Luis down to 5 life…

“You got me. There's no way I can win now,” Luis says, scooping his board up and starting to shuffle his deck. “Game two!”

-

“Oye, earth to Leon, you in there?” Jesus Christ. Luis played a card that required him to shuffle his library and Leon completely zoned out staring at Luis's hands. At first he was just looking at his rings, but then he was just watching his hands shuffling his deck, thinking about what else those fingers could do… What the hell is wrong with Leon? “It's your turn!”

“Right. Sorry. Just zoned out.”

Game two does go to Luis. Quite possibly because Leon kept swooning over him and getting distracted.

But somehow Leon gets his shit together enough to win game three. Luis goes up to report the result of their match, and then the other players that are done gather around and give Luis some shit for losing to a beginner. Leon's anxiety suddenly kicks into overdrive and he gets hit with a vision of Luis throwing him under the bus to protect his own reputation, saying something about how Leon sucks and Luis could have crushed him if he tried, but he went easy on him, and Leon would spend the rest of the night questioning if he actually knows how to play. Being an outcast among other outcasts would be a new low for him.

It doesn't happen. Luis doesn't even dignify the comments with a response, just wanders away from them to glance at the ongoing matches. Leon is both relieved and disappointed that Luis doesn't try to talk to him again. Not until the end of the night, after prize packs are being handed out.

“So… Will I be seeing your pretty face around here again? You won three packs, you could save them for a Friday Night Magic draft for free?”

“Yeah. Think I will.”

Leon isn't sure what exactly a Friday Night Magic draft is, but he'll figure it out.

[hippieghost]

@that-sure-is-a-person

Hope you don't mind me making this it's own post but I wanted to go more in depth than a comment would make. I'm breaking this into two parts: deck building and obtaining cards

Part 1 - deck building and what to build around

If you're just starting to get into MTG, the biggest advice I can give for deck building is to focus more on card synergy than on building a big collection.

What I mean is this - there's a lot of strategies that work really well in mtg, but it can be really overwhelming building a deck when there's so many options available. The best way to counter this is to pick one strategy and make sure your deck does it well.

For this example I'm gonna turn to the current set, and find a card that we can use to build around. Bloomburrow (the most recent set at the time of this writing) is mostly focused on kindred decks, meaning decks that do well when you have a lot of the same creature type. For this example, I'm going to use this guy:

Squirrels. Sure. Why not?

We're gonna kill our opponent with squirrels.

So the above creature has a power and times of 2/2, with it's ability, if another squirrel is on the field, it becomes a 3/3, and so on. He's a rare, so might be a bit tougher to come across, but easier to get our hands on than a mythic rare card.

Let's see what cards work well with him.

Ah, here we go.

Notice how each card here synergizes with squirrels. Our dreyleader is uncommon, and arguably better than the rare we built the deck around. It doesn't have a constant +1/+1, but it starts out with counters that functionally give the same thing, and it keeps those counters if your creatures start to die. It also gets another every time a squirrel or food enters the battlefield under your control.

Squirrel nest and chitterspitter will be great for pumping out more squirrels, but chitterspitter has the extra benefit of giving your squirrels a buff by sacrificing one. All of these buffs stack, so having squirrel horde and chitterspitter both out will give the horde +2/+2 for every squirrel.

From here you can throw in more cards to pump out tokens, or other squirrels that have other effects. There's a few ways this can go, but finding 2 or 3 cards to base your deck around helps alot.

A few other notes -

In most formats you can have a max of 4 of any card. You have to have a minimum of 60 cards in a standard deck.

But Cece? You say, what if I want more than 60?

That's the devil talking. The closer you are to 60 cards, the more likely it is you'll draw one of the cards you actually need.

What about land?

This really depends on the deck. Arena uses 24 as the default, but if you have a lot of cards with low mana cost, you can go fewer. If you have a lot of resource heavy cards, you need to go higher. This deck seems to revolve around cards with a mana cost of 3, which is fairly low. We can probably get away with running fewer lands.

My suggestion: count the man's symbols in the top right of every card. You should start off with about half of the total number of mana symbols for your lands, and then adjust from there.

Part 2: obtaining cards

Since you're playing arena, you get a chance to practice already. The easiest way I find to get cards both in arena and irl is by doing drafts.

Drafting is fairly simple. You open a pack, pick a card you want, and pass the pack to the left. At the end, you use all of the cards you've picked and some lands to build a 40-card draft deck. You then compete against other drafters in best of 3 matches to potentially win more packs of cards.

Best case scenario you get the top prize, but most players will usually come home with an extra pack or two.

In the worst case scenario, so long as you picked cards that work with each other, you go home with the same amount of cards that you would have by spending the same amount on booster packs, and all the cards you picked out are cards you chose yourself instead of random ones.

MTG arena has a quick draft that's pretty easy to get into, and is good practice for the real deal. Don't bother spending gems on the deluxe draft. Just save your coins from playing until you can quick draft.

If you don't have drafts near you, then I'd suggest getting the larger packs that come with lands. You can usually get at least a couple decks built out of it. Most sets usually also have starter decks that you can just buy outright and tweak as you go.

A few other points -

1. Multi color decks are fun, but generally more difficult to build in a balanced way because you have to rely more heavily on balancing your lands to get the cards you need. I suggest no more than 2 colors per deck if you're a newer player until you get used to seeing how they mesh with each other.

2. Rarer doesn't always mean better. Some of the best cards in the game are commons. Focus on how they talk to each other instead of how valuable they are when building. That super rare card you pulled is useless if it doesn't have anything to work with!

3. Try every strategy at least once. My least favorite color in magic was black when I started. Now it's the color I personally do best with.

4. If all else fails, my fallback strategy is to take all my red "burn" spells (anything that does direct damage), mix em with some cheap creatures with high attack and low defense, and play super aggressive. This is called "red deck wins" and is a great way to make people mad at you.

Any questions let me know! I'm always happy to help new players get their feet wet!

[inventors-fair]

Playing to your Strengths

We've done a lot of contests here, haven't we.

When sets like Modern Horizons come out, I tend to lean towards running some mechanical contests. When I've got commander on the mind, I've had some legendary designs that come to the forefront. Whenever I'm feeling poetic, there's a flavorful edge I want from people.

In the actual world of playing Magic, I'm decent enough to hold my own, but I have my weaknesses. Turn-by-turn evaluation sometimes muddles my brain a lot. Fixing a curve for limited is something I come by intuitively but I'm nowhere near professional levels. Deckbuilding for constructed often leaves my friends baffled as I tend to jank up my decks with builds like my Pioneer Lutri deck, or RW midrange in Standard (which crumbles pretty hard against other aggro deck).

The point is: we all have our strengths and weaknesses. In the Inventor's Fair, there's variance in contest requirements, and the joy of being a judge is that we can run the game from any angle. The joy of being a contestant is to have a variety of challenges thrown at you. But at the same time, there are areas that aren't always covered by one's skill set.

I mean, when Mark Rosewater posts some theoretical designs, his templating sometimes is shorthand and sporadic, a far cry from the finished templating you'd see on a card—because his strength is grokable gameplay skeletons and the base from which all sets can be built. Sometimes he wrote flavor text, but his story chops aren't going to be the same as the current MTG fiction writers, because he's focused elsewhere. We wouldn't necessarily expect those writers to be designing balanced cards, but their flavor text chops and Story Spotlight ideas influence how the feeling of a set's world comes across.

You—yes, you, the individual—are taking on the role within custom design of every role: you balance the card, you choose the name, you write and edit the templating, you edit the text, you write the flavor, and some of you even do the art yourself. No one person would ever be doing that in a premier Magic set these days! Not only would that be a ludicrous amount of work, but it spreads your talent thin on a massive scale. Card by card, that's up to you.

Some folks feel pressured to do every single contest every time, but there are no grades and requirements here. What I want to tell the you-yes-yous out there is to hone in on your strengths, and to feel that you're learning whenever you want to approach a challenge that deals with areas in which you're not as familiar.

Contests also come with critiques and commentary—and you can send in dialogue with us that's not just on the card. Sometimes a short explanation, while not included in the contest images and whatnot, can help us to more fully feel what your approach is, and to help us in our conversation with you. This is a conversation, after all; it's a fan-to-fan communique, a back and forth about the coolest game in the world (pending another, cooler game).

In our Discord, there's a channel where you can suggest contest ideas. If you feel that there's a strength we haven't tapped into yet, why not drop a line there? Chances are that you're not alone in wanting to flex that particular muscle.

Until next time, flex away, folks. @abelzumi

[devilcat3d]

What's your favorite Commander for MTG

Also would you Fuck Elesh Norn?

first things first lets address the elephant in the room,,,, i would fuck the shit out of elesh norn. i feel like there has been lots of effort by wizards lately to make her almost seem like a motherly figure, and despite that taking the form of her wanting to compleat the entire multiverse and slowly assimilate all beings into her fucked up little world i bet she would absolutely be so good at soft domming me. like hiiiiiii elesh please compleat me and call me a good girl and praise me for following your will so well....

ehem erm um anyway

my favorite commander!!!!

this one is a little hard to pin down as i just have so many decks and i play a new one almost every time i play, but i would have to say its probably between a few. namely

ojer axonil, deepest might - this guy is like mono red burn turned up to 11. this card if allowed to stick fucking decimates life totals and let's you play all the shitty little throw 1 damage at each opponent cards and its a really fun strategy i highly reccomend it.

ukkima, stalking shadow - yep. just ukkima. this deck is not running the green partner so as to not dilute the deck. this is a dimir voltron deck where the deck has ukkima as its only creature and is packed to the brim with interaction, such as blink spells, counterspells, and bounce spells, which allow me to protect ukkima until i can win with commander damage. i only play this deck when i really want to win because it is a nightmare to play against and is one of my more controlly decks.

gandalf the white - i have written an entire post about this guy on my sideblog @devilkittydeckbuilding so i wont go too in depth here but its a mono white group hug deck that actually kills people out of nowhere pretty fast. the whole point is to get a wedding ring on each player and marry the whole table, which leads to decks getting milled out pretty fast lmao. i milled out my gf last time i played the deck because she had two wedding rings, i had a smothering tithe out and every card draw spell i played was making everyone draw cards which gave me more mana with the tithe which let me play more card draw spells and i just milled out one player and moonshaker calvalry'ed the other player. the deck is wild if you can stand giving your opponents a few cards >;3

i also just built a really cool niv-mizzet, supreme "control" deck and that's one im excited to play again!!!!

thanks for the ask!!!!

[drowsy-siren]

I love deck building games so I just wanted to ask which one(s) are your favorite?

I really want to get into one but I feel like there’s always an entry barrier that I have a hard time getting around. Any advice?

Thanks ❤️

Excellent question. and I'm gonna be VERBOSE in my response, best of luck dear readers:

So I'll start with TCGs / PVP deckbuilders: I've played MTG / MTG:A, Legends of Runeterra, Hearthstone, Marvel Snap, and Gwent. Of these, I've enjoyed Hearthstone, Marvel Snap, and MTG the most. I stopped playing Hearthstone because it is owned by Activision-Blizzard, but if that is okay with you, I would recommend it. I feel it is fairly simple to understand mechanically, and the largest barrier is having cards to play with (which is best fixed by doing your daily missions, if you dont have ~$70 or whatever it is now to get a ton of packs) Marvel Snap I LOVED as soon as I started playing. It's an absolute blast and a few months ago, I would have said that it was a nearly-perfect PVP deckbuilder. And to me, it's one of the best because for a while, the exact deck you were running wasn't all that important. Your "winnings" were moreso dictated by your ability to read the game and know when to double down on your wins or back out, rather than being reflective of the actual outcome of deck-vs-deck. My issue with the game recently is that I disagree with the devs decisions to make card-collection growth extremely slow later in the game (I could do a separate post about it, cuz it would be verbose, so I'll leave it at that for now). BUT, this largely does not impact newer players. In fact, I think it is easier for newer players to get cards that they like and want. I feel that Snap is a fairly easy game to learn quickly, and the skill development comes from learning when to snap (the doubling-down mechanic) and predicting what your opponent might do. I feel that you can enjoy the game as a F2P player, but if you want to be highly competitive, you'll likely want to buy the monthly battlepass for the card that comes with it.

MTG is a social game to me, and I think (unless you are intending to be competitive / go to FNM or tournaments) it should be treated as such. And what I mean by that is I believe you should find people of similar mindset to you, in terms of what level of play you want to experience at your table and how strict of rules you want to adhere to. I tend to only play Commander/EDH or variations on it (planechase), but I do enjoy one-off draft games. And I play with people who likewise enjoy these formats and are generally lax with how they play. There are a LOT of magic cards, so being an "efficient" deckbuilder in MTG is extremely inaccessible to new players, imo, simply due to the sheer volume of cards to consider. BUT, when you play with more relaxed/casual players who are there for fun, good company, and silly times, it can be very easy to get into because there are resources like Pre-Con decks or EDHREC to simplify the deck-building process and get you playing sooner/more easily. If you are looking to become more competitive at MTG, I recommend playing MTG:Arena because it's an easy way to get a bunch of games under your belt and get a feel for what kinds of cards and decks are strong at the moment.

Non-PVP Deckbuilders:

So, if you like deckbuilders but aren't as big on TCGs for money reasons or the companies that make them are shitty, there are a bunch of other deckbuilders that I absolutely love and recommend to everyone (advice about getting into them will be at the end cuz it's kind of the same for all of them):

So first and foremost, Slay the Spire. An absolute blast, deckbuilding roguelike/roguelite that was absolutely addicting to play. I cannot recommend this game enough. Across the Obelisk. Like Slay the Spire, it's a deckbuilding RPG. BUT. It's multiplayer (up to 4). It is soooooo much fun, with really interesting narrative paths. Progression looks like unlocking new characters and unlocking/upgrading things that make your runs easier. And difficulty ramps up pretty quickly without making you feel discouraged. Cannot recommend this enough Wildfrost. Another deckbuilding roguelike. It's very fun, but very different than Slay the Spire because a lot of the gameplay focuses on interactions with ally and enemy positioning, in different lanes of combat.

Beneath Oresa. HOLY FUCK is it cool and fun. It only fully released within the past few weeks, I played a couple months ago and am so curious what's been added. It is another deck-building roguelike, but it's 2.5D ish in that you do combat in zones (near and far). And (extra cool) your character is physically moving around a space when you fight and bounce between these zones. The artwork is stunning and I cant wait to see what they did with the narrative because the atmosphere is incredible.

I probably have a couple others, but they didn't come to mind as I was writing this, so I'm leaving them out for now. One key recommendation about the non-TCG deckbuilders, particularly the roguelike ones, is to keep your deck size small. It's easy to see a cool card and want access to it, but the more cards in your deck, the less consistent your hands are. When you get the option to remove cards from your deck, use them

[avena-de-la-luna]

Now look at that, my first booster pack and I have the card I talked about in my last post!!!

Such an experience to have it right here in my hands. Actually this pack is my first ever MTG cards that I personally own, I only played with borrowed ones and on MTGA and it is sooo cool!!!

Also bought more packs, opened three in total and from them got these two insane plains, one in Phyrexian, other one in foil. This set really wants to make me a white player XDD.

However a forest land also dropped, so my green soul lives on!

[wifelinkmtg]

you guys i’m starting to think magic story might not be that good

I’m really really happy the Phyrexia essay found its intended audience, and i’m glad it resonated so deeply with so many of you! People have asked me if they can quote it or lift concepts from it, and the answer is yes, absolutely! Please attribute it to me if you do, and if you want to send me whatever you’re using it in I would love to read it, though that’s optional. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is, man, was March of the Machine story a wet dud or what? I try to set my expectations low with official WotC stuff, but I did not have them set anywhere near low enough. Consequently, it’s been difficult to muster the energy lately to do things on this blog because, like, jeez, what an unceremonious and largely consequence-free waste of potential all of that was (except for the Ixalan story. The Ixalan story had everything: amazing kaiju fights [sorry Ikoria] and Magic’s best lesbian couple [sorry Gruulfriends, also congrats Gruulfriends.] “But what about the Ravnica story?” you, an incorrect person, say, “I thought the Ravnica story was really good,” you continue, incorrectly. The Ravnica story was very bad! It had really good ideas in it, but it was exceedingly-poorly written. My most charitable interpretation is that there was a miscommunication, and the author expected there would be a thorough editorial pass, and instead they just published it as-is. Sad! I would have really enjoyed a well-written version of that story. </hater>) But also it’s been difficult to muster enthusiasm to do Magic stuff lately because of WotC’s extracurriculars (increasingly-predatory attempts to more thoroughly monetize D&D, the fucking thing with the fucking Pinkertons.) But today I took an Adderall because it’s one of the rare days I actually have to focus on a task at work, and I’m using the residual focus to post an overdue update here, hello!

And I’m not done with this blog! Far from it. I’m going to keep posting dumb horny card art reviews here, for sure, but here’s some other stuff you can expect to see in the next few months or so:

1. a follow-up to the Phyrexia essay digging into the question of what a “fascist aesthetic” is, what it’s for in fiction, what it means to enjoy things that contain those elements. I think this is a really interesting topic with a lot of depth and hopefully nuance to it, and I really only skirted it in the original essay, and oh man did people have things to say about that (most of them polite). I addressed a similar topic previously on this blog when I talked about the conquistador vampires in Ixalan, but I don’t think I’m satisfied with that post. I think we can also talk about how we engage with a text, and how we engage with a text like Magic: the Gathering specifically. This is a lot to cover, and it may end up getting trimmed down, or I may succumb entirely to the seduction of scope creep. Who can say!

2. an essay on chivalry in its historical contexts, how it’s been used, what purposes it serves in a society (its role, for instance, in sustaining white supremacy in America), and what it means when we encounter it in “sword lesbian” media (the Locked Tomb books, Revolutionary Girl Utena, etc.) This is going to require a great deal of research and I have no idea what my ultimate conclusion will be, but it’s a topic I’m personally very invested in for a whole host of reasons.

3, maybe. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing MtG fic for a while, because they keep wasting potential and I think I could do a better job. If I do, I’ll post it here, but no promises. Fiction isn’t my main genre, and fanfic isn’t something I’ve gotten seriously into before, despite being on tumblr since 2011. But someone needs to do Avacyn justice, so we’ll see.

4. other writing. I’m a lightly-published poet in real life, and I’m currently working on my first chapbook, so maybe I’ll try putting some of it on tumblr, and since this blog’s readership has surpassed my personal, I guess? I’d put it here? Or, possibly, the short horror stories I infrequently write. Again, we’ll see.

5. Obviously I’m going to keep doing the horny Magic card art reviews. I’m not feeling the new stuff right now, but there’s a lot of older sets I haven’t done yet. The Tarkir block is next - and in fact, I think that will be the next post on this blog. I think it’s time we started appreciating Monastery Swiftspear for more than her brutal efficiency in aggro decks, because frankly she’s a snack and this should be acknowledged.

Anyway, thank you all for reading, hit me up if you wanna play some Commander, and I’ll see y’all in the next one!

[sexhaver]

this is still one of my all-time favorite pieces of artwork on a card. you notice the angry minotaur winding up for an attack first... and then it registers that the shadows around the edges are actually vines overgrowing his form, and then you realize that's a bird perched on his horn. because he's been frozen in time for that long. Drew Tucker is one of the few remaining MTG artists from the "old guard" that gets to ignore the modern photorealism style guide in favor of their own instantly recognizable style because they've been illustrating cards for longer than the average MTG player has been alive - Phil and Kaja Foglio (they're married!) are another good example. Seb McKinnon and Terese Nielsen used to be examples of this before COVID-times but unfortunately they both contracted acute shitheaditis and started posting about how the Ottawa Trucker Convoy was right or denying that they're a TERF right before sending free signed artwork to a TERF podcast, respectively

[blackcr0wkingart]

not actually art yet but i'm weirdly proud of all this so here you go lmao

a lil while back i posted a sketch of an mtg fan character i was playing around with, a phyrexian angel named Svyr who came about after i built a pauper edh deck around Slaughter Singer:

i thought it could be fun to make a little proxy card featuring Svyr... idk if i'd ever actually whip this out in a game once it's finished but damn it, i wanted to have fun LOL.

but anyway.. no actual drawing yet because i spent yesterday trying to accurately transliterate her name and epithet into Phyrexian... and i think i managed to actually do it? there are a couple things i'm still unsure about - mostly regarding glottal stops, but i'm gonna call this good :'D i spent... a lot of hours on just this lmao

[tekdecksmtg]

From the Archives: Wilds of Eldraine Prerelease

As I recently did the Bloomburrow Prerelease, I thought I’d look back on my first prerelease, which happened to be my first in-person Magic event since getting back into the game!

I was writing some logs at the time on my experiences but didn’t post them anywhere. I still remember how much excitement I had coming out of this event, just it being my first tabletop Magic in person in like 25 years. Let’s see what I thought at the time!

Archive:

First ever prerelease event and first time playing in-person MTG in about 25 years!

I’m given my prerelease kit which contains a promo card Restless Vinestalk and six Wilds of Eldraine draft boosters from which I need to construct a 40 card deck. I open my packs and then sort all my cards by color.

While I had some nice white pulls, I knew that I needed to focus on creatures and interaction. After sifting through all my cards I eventually narrowed down to green and black for my deck.

Match 1: After the construction period, the Magic Companion app tells me where to sit. I’m put at Table 4 against white/green. Can’t believe I’m about to play my first game!

Game 1: Got out some creatures and damage, but he had a flying griffin that was just too strong and ultimately beat me. I had seven mana up for Virtue of Persistence but it was worthless to cast as I needed an answer. Went into desperation mode digging via my Collector’s Vault finding a flier to block one turn but inevitably nothing else.

Game 2: More of the same considering decks are only 40 cards. He was able to pump up creatures with Royal Roles, copying them as well. I was able to take his flier by casting a fight spell targeting it versus my Scream Puff, but his tramplers were a problem. Ultimately ran out of time in our match and he was ahead on life so he was awarded Game 2 (though he was in control anyway) and subsequently the match.

First match lost 0-2-0.

Match 2: As we get ready to move tables, the Companion app tells us what’s next and I’m surprised to see that I have a ‘bye’. As there were uneven players someone had to sit out each match. I would’ve preferred to actually play but fortunately having the bye awards me the win at least.

Second match won 2-0-0.

Match 3: I’m slotted back at Table 4 again for my match against an opponent playing predominantly blue and black.

Game 1: Quite a bit of good back and forth, creatures attacking and damage being dealt. The game turned on him being able to get me to sacrifice a couple of creatures followed by fliers that I couldn’t stop and ultimately beat me down for the loss.

Game 2: Really close and intense game. Lots of back and forth for a while with creatures trading off, but the game changer was my Virtue of Persistence which started bringing back creatures from a graveyard each turn, focusing on his dead fliers and my food creators first for defense then moving to offense. Overwhelmed him and won my first game in person!

Game 3: A little close early but I was able to drop my Sentinel of Lost Lore which got rid of his creature/adventure in exile as well as his graveyard. Then I was able to bargain my Hamlet Glutton on T5, followed by more creatures the next turn. He appeared to get mana flooded and I was able to take down the game pretty easily!

Third match won 2-1-0.

Overall I finished 2-1 (4-3-0) and in 11th place out of 25. The two wins awarded me two Set Boosters and I was also given a Magic 30th anniversary harvester of Souls for participating.

Absolutely incredible event; just such a fun time and made me realize how much I’ve missed playing Magic in person, especially at an event like this where everyone is on equal footing. Can’t wait to go for another; might have to sign up for the Legacy Open next!

Additional Notes:

* Virtue of Persistence was my favorite card from the deck, so powerful to get that early removal and game-changing if you can get the enchantment side out later.

* Collector’s Vault did absolute work, letting me cycle cards to rebalance my hand while also making Treasure tokens that could fix mana and allow me to cast more spells.

* Hamlet Glutton was only seen once but dropping a 6/6 trample on T5 is quite nice with the bonus 3 life gain coming along with it.

* My deck had no way to deal with creatures with evasion; I need to remember that for future events. There needs to be a way to stop fliers especially.

[theunwellkingdom]

Design Deep-Dive #12: Even More Tri-Lands!

A few months ago, I did a Deep-Dive on this set's tri-lands, and the inspirations behind their design. Since then, they've proven to be extremely successful... so much so that I decided to make more!

First, the good: after several rounds of playtesting, these lands have done exactly what I hoped they would. They feel fun, fair, and reliable! Their inclusion as commons means the official set cube has four copies of each, so players can expect to find several in a given draft.

They allow players to mana-fix into any 2-color combination, and even support some very solid 3-color decks (Black/Red/Green has been THE deck to beat so far), without letting games devolve into 5-color soup. As important as it is for lands to provide multiple colors for decks to function, it's crucial to maintain the restrictions of each color identity that are baked into the DNA of Magic.

So what's the problem? This original 5-card cycle was designed to ensure each color pair was represented, in much the way MtG has released triomes in their actual sets. However, This inherently means half of the pairs show up twice as often as others! This became a clear factor in pushing players toward certain colors and away from others when deckbuilding, more than I had expected.

It didn't help that one of these pairs, Red/Green, has been dominant so far, with a straightforward gameplan, tons of support, and some of the best top-end bombs the set has to offer (More on that in a future post). With both Bran Bramble and Cobbleston fueling these decks, it was was simply too good to pass up, while other archetypes like Blue/Red Wizards struggled to come together with only Glimmer to back them up.

With all that in mind, I set to work on an additional 5 lands to fully complete this cycle! With all 10 in the set, the math becomes much more stable -- each 3-color combination now has a dedicated land, and each color pair exists on 3 lands. My hope is that it will now feel more consistent for a player to build into any color combos they want.

This also introduces a new problem however... If these all remain Common, there are now DOUBLE the total tri-lands in the set cube. I don't have the wiggle room I'd need to shift all of them to Uncommons, but I liked the frequency of their appearance before. As a compromise, I've decided to keep them in the Common slot, but only include two copies of each. So players should expect to see them just as often as before, but now with a more even color distribution.

In all, I'm very excited about how these turned out! I haven't even touched on the art/theming, but it was a fun challenge to find 5 more fitting locations from our D&D campaign and illustrate them. I think they're visually some of my favorites in the whole set so far! Once it's time to print physical copies, there's a good chance our Commander pod will house-rule these to be legal outside of this homebrew set.

Click through for a closer look at each of them:

[technofinch]

i would like to know abt hans the little german boy

well u see. hans the little german boy is a little german boy who came with us out of the fallout vault and into the post-apocalyptic uk. (he's actually a full grown adult man he just happened to be named hans. so of course he rapidly morphed into a little german boy)

there's not really much to say about him that i remember, sadly it has been many moons since we last got to explore the desolate wasteland of southern great britain 😔 but i can give you the custom mtg card the gm made for him