🔴LIVE

Hey Gamers! Celebrating my B-day with some MTG Arena Drafting. Secrets Strixhaven just launched today.

Also going to be grinding some SNAP and trying out Polaris Horseman of Pestilence.

Come vibe for a bit😎✌

www.twitch.tv/gregor2424

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Need/Should/Wait? I think this is an easy SHOULD. It's fun & different but also definitely playable

It works in a few different ways so as long as SOME type of buff deck is in the meta it should have a place & it'll be a consistently looked at card in Pixie decks or whenever Mobius is meta.

Future Homes / Synergies? Sub-Mariner is an interesting card that will add a bunch of boosted 1-Costs - so easy to play and possibly afflict after getting their minor ability. Venus MIGHT be good - I think she won't see Ongoing. I'm guessing "boost" will be the new term for "gets permanent power"

Anything not work? Plans that rely on cards abilities (like Shou) don't work as well because of the wipe. Demands too great care in placement.

Where is it now? Some rock decks for the two-direction buff and Pixie decks since the card is a Mobius friend and it all fits.

Anything real good? Mobius / Elysium / Limbo means a lot of TOV plays. but in general - it's hard to find a broken pattern since it's based on plays of TOV. Need more overlap between buff targets (the overlap Patriot targetting is broken by TOV overwrite, only Mole Man creates rocks to hand)

to explain that better - for Ongoing it's obvious. the TOV turns cards into Ongoings so Spectrum will hit these as well. But also - Surfer targets 3-Cost cards. TOV infected 3-Costs still get buffed. Ozymandius targets rocks. TOV infected rocks still get buffed. Vicky Hand targets created cards..

Did it strategically work like we thought? Sort of. it does work well in the removal of abilities from "bad" Ongoings (think Sauron) but it also turned out to be a solid alternative plan in any deck that throws out a lot of cards to be buffed later based NOT on their ability (unless it's Ongoing)

Fortnight Follow-Up : Techno-Organic Virus!

Did it technically work like we thought? Yes. Infection wipes the card of its ability starts adding power. I'll note the On-Reveal part is infecting AND copying back to hand. If you play on a location where On-Reveals don't happen... bye bye TOV.

Shou is more flexible though. Q here is going to be how those Askani decks come together. If you have to rely on Horserine, that isn't good. But if he's the best of multiple paths then I see it. With more cards that have interesting boosted abilities this card gets better though so SHOULD I guess.

He's a bad card for snapping... right now.

Mother Askani doesn't solve the targetting issue or even the timing for snapping. BUT will it matter if you are dropping 13, 13, 8 on the last turn? Maybe not. Shou gets bigger but not THAT much bigger. And you pretty much can't stop Horserine.

Need/Should/Wait?

So currently Horserine is not a good card, even at 4/15. The problems are two fold. First, you want to target to multiply the effect but that's difficult to do. Second, if you do manage it, it has to be after t5 which makes a late game surprise impossible.

Future Homes / Synergies? Mother Askani both makes him cheaper and fulfills his objective giving you two 3/17s in hand albeit in a very specific 9, 4, 4 distribution.

Stick and Triton will both work - but probably not their best use. Venus will make any in play added +1 a +2

Anything real good? Hitting two of the Activate trio (Lasher, Maverick, ScarSpid) & hitting Cap Carter going into t6 is usually a win condition

Anything not work? All those times when that doesn't happen. Which is usually.

Where is he now? Waiting patiently for Mother Askani

Did he strategically work like we thought? Nah he sort of bombed as a power delivery system in buff decks & if he's not there he's sort of just a big stat card that isn't (wasn't?) big enough

The balance is hard you want him to go off with one-card per lane for targetting but hard to buff in time.

Fortnight Follow-Up : Wolverine : Horseman of War!

Horserine! Warverine! Wolverhorse!

Did he technically work like we thought? Yes! and there's a bunch of things you may not have thought of that set him off. Like playing on Nidavellir or on a Mosh Pit or playing behind a Captain Carter.

We talked about putting Wong in this. Two Malekith pulls that might go off twice. But so much Cosmo out there.

What did you hammers deck look like?

Thinking of something fun/interesting I would try - you could play around with Malekith hammers.

They better not screw this up like they did my Majestic Wingbeat avatar

This IS the last Magik variant coming in a while. Well at least the last one forecasted. And only one X-23!

May is light on cheesecake in part I guess because June will be heavy. They are finally bringing over the Asian Gooner Dagger but I know what variant I have my eyes set on.

I've realized I have way too many tokens (and gold) for a while now, but have held off on getting variants bc I didn't want to buy a few, get to where I wanted to hold off, and then have this one I really wanted pop up. Now that I have it I'm freer

It'll be interesting in that the top of the meta is balanced against eachother so if they can't really take one down w/o making the others relatively stronger. They have to nerf SLMOS and FFF and the EOT 2099 stuff all at once. Likely before Quicksand comes out

I assume you deleted it because Black Bolt wasn't a 5/8. Well I got new for you buddy! Time to come back!

Guys. It took months of waiting but we did it.

Need/Should/Wait? " Season pass pass" on this but if I have to give him a level I'd say SHOULD. He's not meta dominant now but he has a solid ability and finding something broken doesn't seem crazy.

Where is he now?
Mostly SLMOS ramp decks where DayMan, Zola, and Foom are all good hits. Also Aurora Thanos decks. Lots of Cosmo out there though.

Future Homes / Synergies? Any 4+ higher On-Reveal will make you think about this doubling it up. Mother Askani and Stick both could have potential.

Anything real good? Making him Foom, then Zola'ing. Especially in a ramp deck where you can then also play Foom

Anything not work? The other current meta decks : IWFS2099, SG, Shou; don't have the right mix of cards for him, same with ramp. Reaching in for a tech piece is clunky & unreliable

Did he strategically work like we thought? I'd say yes. The whole "Make him Foom!" strategy was the main idea and that has been where he landed. The rest were a bunch of "something else has to be good" and we've seen him find a spot in Aurora lists as well. Odin On-Reveal fell flat though.

Fortnight Follow-Up : Stryfe!

Did he technically work like we thought?
Yes, FWIW if there are multiple On-Reveals of the same cost he will choose randomly. Given how simple it is to reach his objective you have to be careful. He's often ready to go on t4.