That’s that beautiful Jund magic! I briefly considered retooling Ashling as “only Jund Ashling” before realizing that restricting her to the colors that love sacrificing things and pulling them out of the graveyard again would actually make her more oppressive.
Even better, we appear to be inventing Sistah Souljahs based on things that were spoon fed to us by our own prior speechwriters. (Who we likely had a falling out with at some point.)
bsky.app/profile/bubb...
100% agree with these as the most sensible option if you’re already storing them in a Quiver or something where the external durability isn’t an issue.
Maybe not the sexiest take, but a necessary ingredient for much of Bracket 4+ is homogeneity. Decks will have a very tight Plan A and B, and will build in as much redundancy as possible to get there. As a result, many wins will unfold along fairly similar lines.
This is probably the more accessible version of the same idea, compiling tournament results so that the meta is clearly legible: edhtop16.com
Just finished myself. Sharing the gift link to this since I thought it was incredibly cool: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
Exactly one year ago today:
This is also a literal Beltway myopia based on people who routinely gather to display protest banners along 495 overpasses during morning commutes. Who else has free time at 8 AM on a Tuesday? Media types see that on their drives, but then don’t bother to cover larger weekend protests at all.
EVA-01 illustration by this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/evangelion/comments/17em6s5/mecha_portrait_eva01/ It’s very good!
Okay, on one hand this is pretty gross, but on the other hand it does seem fitting that EVA-01 is descending from the sky to usher in the final phase of the Human Instrumentality Project.
I get by just fine in an Ioniq 5 with a high voltage extension cord and a very basic adapter, total cost ~$200. People get scared off when they see “10 hours to full charge” or whatever, not realizing that the time is almost irrelevant if you’re charging mostly overnight.
Ashling, the Limitless {2}{R} Legendary Creature — Elemental Sorcerer Elemental permanent spells you cast from your hand gain evoke {4} as you cast them. (If you cast a spell for its evoke cost, it’s sacrificed when it enters.) Whenever you sacrifice a nontoken Elemental, create a token that’s a copy of it. The token gains haste until end of turn. At the beginning of your next end step, sacrifice it unless you pay {W}{U}{B}{R}{G}. 2/3 Illustrated by Kai Carpenter
Hadn’t realized that the entire type was created right before Lorwyn Eclipsed. But based on Ashling’s evolution from Shaman to Sorcerer, I think the Sorcerer is primarily defined as “magic user that we don’t want to work with Harmonic Prodigy.”
An under-appreciated bonus of the Mystical Archive is that it allows for a wide-scale “de-hattening” of cards that had previously existed only in hat set (or UB, I guess) treatments. Hard to see why this version wouldn’t be the preferred printing for a majority of players.
Last Laugh {2}{B}{B} Enchantment Whenever a permanent other than this enchantment is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, this enchantment deals 1 damage to each creature and each player. When no creatures are on the battlefield, sacrifice this enchantment. Illustrated by John Matson
I basically designed this Daxos deck as an excuse to run Endless Whispers alongside Last Laugh (and Tombstone Stairwell). There are so many weird black enchantments that leaning into an enchantress archetype itself seems right.
moxfield.com/decks/F50ZDW...
Mtg card Social Snub, with the flavor text “Sorry. This seat’s taken.”
Tbh, the minute I saw this card spoiled I assumed we were about to start spiraling in that direction.
I’m honored! Though when you simply let me sit back and play with my toys, you wind up with something like Rocco and a playmat covered in 7/7 food dinosaurs. Having fiddled with a Rakdos deck and a Bant deck over the weekend, I am fully certain that the Bant option is somehow crueler.
But as a one-time cyclist, I’d put in a plug for any kind of stationary bike, doesn’t have to be a pricey Peloton. You can often just spin while you’re doing something else. (It’s basically the only way I can make steady progress through anime, for instance!)
Early pandemic, my wife and I got a lot of mileage out of incredibly short unassisted routines that we could do in like 20 minute bursts in our tiny apartment. This one I distinctly remember only because the actor is famous: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVr9...
Great minds, etc. bsky.app/profile/1vor...
As strict removal, Path is likely preferable. But since half my reason for ever playing it is as backup ramp for decks with a high token creature count, I can see Revoke replacing it. Killing your own thing knowing you can get a dies/ETB/cast trigger later does expand the range of possible targets.
And probably its most prominent use is in Anti-Lorehold colors.
I 100% agree with you and also have noticed that the Play queue is *currently* significantly more tolerable now that the Baral/Thassa and Acererak players have all migrated. I wonder how long that will last.
I’m in agreement, but it’s an interesting thought experiment to weigh where “writing” starts and ends. No doubt some of my middle school success was owed to knowing how to use the MS Word thesaurus to embed more musical phrases in essays. Truman Capote probably would have ruled against that too.
Perhaps because of the school-based setting, I immediately assumed you meant “Advanced Placement” credit and got extra excited for you.
This is assuredly true, but it’s also the case that my 60 card peak will always be making Mythic on Arena in Historic before I even knew what netdecking was with some unholy amalgam of Irencrag Pyromancer, Niv Mizzet, and Brainstorm. No win can beat the high of utterly baffling every opponent.
When folks playing those commanders can then forego Night’s Whisper, it frees them up to drop in even more synergy pieces, which will likely enable the commander to draw/payoff at a further accelerated rate, so that the rich only get richer.
I’ve recently wondered whether some of Dana’s objection to contemporary design is tied to a broader shift towards contained engines in both commanders and support pieces. We all love a Night’s Whisper, but when everyone’s commander is drawing 1 per turn, the rate stops being so… apparent.
I read through some of the early manga for the first time to get caught up for this season, but for segments like this last episode, I’m not sure how you even capture the required continuity of action through still frames. I’ll have to push through at some point to see.
Have you seen this clip? The crowd reaction to the system alone is worth it. bsky.app/profile/case...
I’d been wondering if you’d stuck with it, since I think my first real exposure to the show was seeing your reaction to the end of the Shibuya Incident arc 😅
Bebop and Rocksteady EDHREC count, with only 372 total decks.
There are (barely) dozens of us! Dozens!