You are really amazing, Evu.

❤️

Also thanks to whichever one of you pinned the post; it’s an honor.

You’re an amazing contributor and wish you all the best.

❤️

it has seemed to me that Wizards has undergone an intense campaign to do away with bad topdecks.

I think you’re right. One of the reasons I prefer lower power levels is because then a bad topdeck or two doesn’t have to dash your chances. But that approach doesn’t drive up the card prices…

I’ve had similar ideas. Like you, I’d be concerned about the power level but would at least give it a try.

This is well put. I’m not surprised by the lack of any bans in Standard, but at the same time… if I had my way I’d ban 20 or 30 cards from Standard, just with the goal of getting the power level back where it ought to be.

I can only speculate about what your opponent might have been thinking, but if she really wanted to play with her friends then she is also free to concede at any time. Since she didn’t, she must have seen some value in staying in the match. To be fair, some people are not suited for the “patient teacher” role and maybe that was the case for her. But there’s only so much management of other people’s feelings you can do. Also… she has basically unlimited time to play casual side games with her friends whenever she isn’t in the middle of a tournament.

One thing that I, as an introvert, like about sanctioned tournaments is that nobody has to explain or justify why they are there. You are there to play a pre-determined amount of Magic, against algorithmically selected opponents, you will play exactly that much Magic and will stop playing afterwards, and you are entitled to play because you paid your entry fee.

The single most important rule in Magic is this one:

104.3a A player can concede the game at any time. A player who concedes leaves the game immediately. That player loses the game.

This goes not just for games but also matches and tournaments. If you are having a bad time for any reason, you should never let anybody make you feel like you have to keep playing.

That said, I’d encourage you to reframe how you think about the situation.

Like you said, you were probably going to 0-3 anyway due to your inexperience. The primary value you’re going to get at this stage is meeting the regulars and getting your “sea legs” under you so you’ll be better prepared for the next draft. Think of losses as just part of the process.

I don’t know what the prize structure is at your LGS, but last time I drafted at mine, it was “one pack per win”. I like that structure because each round is just as valuable as the others. Even if you’re 0-2 there’s still hope you can win the next one. In large tournaments, players will often drop once they get two or three losses and it’s no longer possible for them to finish well enough to earn prizes.* But small store events are designed so that everybody gets to play for the whole time. You should also get paired against players with similar records, so by the last round you’ll have an opponent whose deck may be as bad as your own.

If you know you’re going to “preemptively concede” your matches, then you should actually just tell the TO to drop you. Don’t wait until you and your opponent get to the table only to concede in person. Formally dropping is better because if there are two drops (or there was an odd number of players to begin with), the tournament software will be able to pair up people who actually want to play.

Assuming there’s an even number of drafters, your early drop does mean that whoever you were going to face doesn’t get to play in that round. That’s a bit of a bummer for them, but if that free win means they get an extra pack, that tends to soften the blow.

If you do continue playing, feel free tell your opponents “I’m new and my deck is bad”, or keep that info to yourself, as you prefer. Mostly what you’d get out of saying that is letting them know they might need to play slower or explain their actions more thoroughly. I’ve met a wide variety of Magic players; some of them will gleefully stomp a newbie, and some will be happy to take it slow and let you undo (recent) mistakes. You never know which type you’re up against until you get into the game.

Rarely will you meet somebody who will actually get salty about how long it’s taking them to beat you. Those people do exist, but they are jerks and you should try not to stress about making them upset. They were always going to get upset no matter what. If you ever feel like somebody’s behavior is really unacceptable, you can call a judge in the moment, or speak to the TO privately later. And remember the Golden Rule that you are free to leave at any time. Some things aren’t worth putting up with just for the chance to win a booster pack.

IMO it’s poor form for the store to change the format on you at the last minute, but I get that they have to keep all their customers happy. Chaos draft arguably puts everyone on even footing since you can’t really prepare for it and just have to rely on fundamentals, but whether you view that as a good thing or not is a matter of opinion. We’re late in the season right now and people may be burned out on Aetherdrift. In a couple of weeks, Tarkir: Dragonstorm will be out and everybody will be excited to play that. Study up on it and you shouldn’t have to worry about anyone changing the draft format on you for a couple of months.

Have fun out there!

* The other side of the coin: never let anyone make you feel like you’re supposed to drop, or owe it to them to drop. You are entitled to play to the bitter end if you so desire. You are never expected to concede to someone, and you should especially not entertain any offers to concede in exchange for a share of prizes or other consideration – that could get you disqualified or sanctioned.

Actually, I have to take back what I said – stun counters don’t work with your plan. Doubling Season only doubles counters on permanents you control.

But overall you’re getting good advice in this thread. Try to have multiple copies of your best cards, and focus more (but not necessarily exclusively) on prosecuting your own plan, as opposed to accounting for everything your opponent might do.

Unfortunately, a lot of your best cards are rares – which is often the case in Magic – and it may be expensive to fill your deck with them. But at least use as many as you can, and find placeholders for the rest while you work on building up your collection.

Since you’re building for Standard, one advantage of having four copies of your cards is that it’ll improve consistency. Sometimes you might find yourself thinking, for example, “I should be able to win next turn as long as I draw a counterspell to answer any removal they might have.” That’ll be a lot more likely to happen if you know you have four, or eight, counterspells in the deck, versus the scattered few in the original list.

Stun counters and certain cards with the proliferate mechanic could offer ways to get some early defense that also synergize with Doubling Season. Consider these:

• Floodpits Drowner
• Serum Snare
• Reject Imperfection

As others have pointed out, you should decide whether this deck is for Standard or Standard Brawl. If it’s for Standard, go up to four copies of your best cards. If it’s for Standard Brawl (which is where I personally would go, from this starting point), you’ll need a commander – Sita Varma will serve, but one of these might be even better:

• Zimone, Paradox Sculptor
• Oko, the Ringleader
• The Goose Mother

Whichever one you choose, other legends can still be in your maindeck. Bristly Bill is a great choice here.

Good luck and have fun!

There is a community at /c/digital if you’d prefer to use that, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using this one.

The art is undeniably cool, but if you’re a purist, these are arguably even less land-like than the THB full-arts.

One of my dream projects that I will never find time for is to make an “Am I Hot Or Not” for Magic lands except you’re voting on whether the art actually depicts the thing in the card name. Islands are the worst offenders – rivers or fountains or pretty much anything with water seems to qualify.

You might be right. Be interesting to see what they decide. I don’t have a dog in the fight – I don’t play Modern and don’t have any affection for either card.

But if they ban Breach in the next announcement and then still have to re-ban Opal in the following one, I predict Breach will become the new Splinter Twin, in that the community will see it as having died for another card’s sins, and call for its reinstatement.

Six copies in the top 8 – that’s one more than Nadu did, if I’m not mistaken.

If something gets banned, my guess would be Opal. If Breach is banned then Opal can go on to enable any number of other broken decks, but the reverse isn’t as true.

Having to re-ban Opal just a few months after un-banning it will be an embarrassment, but I’d wager they’ll still do it.

A common archetype theme gets an ability word

I would like to see “blink” get keyworded – it would save a lot of text and be good flavor to boot – but this teaser says “ability word” and that’s not the same thing.

I have mixed feelings about stuff like this. On the one hand, Magic has intricate rules, and thousands of different cards, and as someone familiar with those rules and cards, it’s always cool to see them come together to do something impressive.

On the other hand, this is a big part of why I don’t play Timeless, or other high-powered formats. They’re too fast to be fun. You might say “this almost never happens”, but IMO it should literally never happen. Zero point zero zero percent of games should ever end on turn 1. I play Standard and I don’t even like that games sometimes end on turn 3. Anytime a game ends and one player didn’t get to do anything fun in it, it’s a symptom of a design failure. If there were a board game where that happened, you wouldn’t be able to get anybody to play it with you. Why we tolerate it in Magic is beyond me.

As if I needed another reason not to buy them.

Any number of artifact creatures dealing combat damage to a player will generate a total of 2 energy. You’re right that the “one or more” text puts a cap on it.

However – say you have three artifact creatures, and one of them has first strike, but the other two don’t. When the first-striker deals combat damage to the opponent, Pia’s ability will trigger, and you’ll get two energy. Then when the non-first-strikers deal combat damage to the opponent, her ability will trigger again, and you’ll get two more energy.

Another way to get more than 2 energy out of her in a turn is to use “additional combat” effects.

Three Overlords decks in the T8 and two in the finals. If this leads to a rash of people playing Overlords in your metagame, allow me to note that Poison Burn (updated list in the comments) has like a 90%+ win rate against it. Terrible against red aggro, though.

I saw someone playing that Golgari deck on Arena last night, guess this is where it came from. Always exciting to see a rogue deck doing well.

Was getting ready to post this myself. Thanks for doing it!

Direct link to the donation page, in case anybody prefers to bypass Bluesky: https://give.translifeline.org/tolarian

I think this system has the potential to achieve its objective, if it doesn’t end up causing more confusion. Five brackets might be kind of a lot, although I hear what Gavin’s saying about why they went up from three, and 40 “game-changers” is definitely a lot. Nobody will or should try to memorize what’s a game-changer, especially if the list can fluctuate the same as a ban list. It might be better to try to use categories that explain why the game-changing cards are a problem… except that Gavin did exactly that in the article, and it’s still a fairly long list.

All of my Commander decks would be in bracket 1 or 2 and my main question is how to decide which. Most don’t have sub-optimal card choices to fit a theme, but all have sub-optimal card choices for budget reasons, and I’m not sure whether any of them are really a fair match for a precon. Should I say “bracket 1.5”?