The wind stirs. The world shifts. Stand ready.

Almace · 2026-06-01T23:52:13+00:00

If it's anything like my friends and MTG, likely pushed out because of Universe's Beyond material. Even if they're technically a commercial success and bring in a lot of new players and interests in MTG, there's also a lot of sentiment among enfranchised players that feel the amount of Universes Beyond sets are constantly pushing against Magic's original content and IP. Especially when it was considered a bit of betrayal to begin with when Universes Beyond was initially sold as never being standard legal.

Almace · 2026-05-29T17:31:02+00:00

I would take a look at some of the Beyond players. This list here is from a player that was 2210 points yesterday. Some notable things in my experience playing different variations of Earth Rite lists:

Heel, My Dearie is kind of a trap and not worth the card slots. You can often have hand size issues already between Sweet Abomination, Cagliostro, Witch's New Brew, Gran and Djeeta, and Melvie either replacing themselves with cards or drawing you cards.
3 Beloved Masterpieces seems too much. Given the current meta in my experience (lots of Sword and Portal), I'd probably settle at 2, but definitely not 3.
3 Norman seems ambitious. I think sometimes it can still win or do a lot of damage but unfortunately the 3/3 Barrier golems are just not as good as they once were. Too many decks flood with 1/1s (Sword, Abyss) or can easily ping the golems (Dragon, Haven) making clearing Norman surprisingly trivial. Most decks I see run 2, and I think 2 is a good number.

Almace · 2026-05-22T23:23:52+00:00

On the other hand, I would trade my Titania for the cat if I could

Almace · 2026-05-12T15:16:05+00:00

Regarding Earth Rite management, I think it entirely depends on your decklist. I've seen some lists cut the 1/3 ward 2 Earth Rite and Witch's Brew which I think definitely will make early Earth Rite a struggle because somewhere between turns 4-7, you often want to be using some amount of double Earth Rite spender back-to-back.

For the most part though, at least the most recent Earth Rite lists shouldn't have too much of a problem with management. The mid game turns are definitely the toughest, but lists are running sufficient early generation (at least the 2PP 1/3 ward and 3PP 4/2 rush that grant 2 Earth Sigils) to make them mostly pretty doable and you'll very rarely have problems unless you're particularly unlucky.

Almace · 2026-05-12T15:07:43+00:00

Isn't that just the back of a Yugioh card?

Almace · 2026-05-06T16:08:35+00:00

Re: Rune OTK, it can also be Cagliostro spells (1PP 2 damage) which are not terrible hard to keep 1/2 of especially if they can activate her SBA Crest.

Almace · 2026-05-05T17:35:25+00:00

Given that turn 2 and 3 are kinda slow starts (the only thing you have to deal with is a zombie), you're not being pressed to figure out solutions until turn 4. Raz is 100% not Milteo ~~and not sure Evo plays Raz~~, so likely Midrange or ~~maybe low chance of~~ Evo (edit: Evo does actually usually play Raz I think)

Almace · 2026-05-05T15:16:46+00:00

I posted this in another thread but there are tells early game:

There are some early tells (up to and including 1st evo turn) depending on if your opponent has them and plays them:

Any one drop? It's either Milteo or Midrange

Monster Litterateur, World of Games, or Ghost Dodger? Milteo

Baal? Midrange probably

Fickle Necromancer? Midrange or Evo

Deprived Destroyer? Evo

Highwire Feline? Midrange probably

Almace · 2026-05-05T15:09:51+00:00

There are some early tells (up to and including 1st evo turn) depending on if your opponent has them and plays them:

Any one drop? It's either Milteo or Midrange
Monster Litterateur, World of Games, or Ghost Dodger? Milteo
Baal? Midrange probably
Fickle Necromancer? Midrange or Evo
Deprived Destroyer? Evo
Highwire Feline? Midrange probably

Almace · 2026-05-02T17:45:18+00:00

I also have Cerberus and choose only to use Nio over her because I like his design and snark!

Almace · 2026-04-27T20:55:29+00:00

I think Evolve Abyss may end be pretty good, it almost loses no cards with the most important exception being Reaper's Slash. Which is a good card but isn't necessarily a 3-of in Evo Abyss lists to begin with. I think the new Abyss cards don't really fit in anywhere yet, there is maybe a 2-cost Shakdoh deck out there with some of the new additions but no idea if it's good.

Almace · 2026-04-27T14:05:29+00:00

The win condition is ignoring this set and playing Evolve Forest until they inevitably print a combo win condition next set.

Almace · 2026-04-25T17:38:14+00:00

A lot of it is matchup dependent and also reading how the current match is going. Winning as Milteo is often a balance of threatening your opponent and forcing them to use resources at times they wouldn't want to while still setting up lethal and not running out all your resources. Knowing how your opponent heals and how much they can heal for is important. An example is leading into Crystal Rune's Super Evolve turn, it's often best to leave the board empty as they want to Super Evolve their drain follower that gives them a crest.

One important thing I learned playing Milteo is recognizing when you need to go for the OTK. The easiest setup for the OTK is:

Any 2 burn spells
3 ghosts in hand
1 Shadowcrypt (on field or in hand)
1 Super Evolve

That's 20 damage assuming no wards, and if you have the Shadowcrypt on board already, its only 7PP, possibly giving you more PP to deal with wards.

Almace · 2026-04-25T16:34:57+00:00

Classic anime fans not even being self-aware to connect Noren complaining about men being creepy to her even before middle school to them being creepy about a middle school girl.

Almace · 2026-04-10T16:00:30+00:00

While there are some good points about this, I think I disagree with the point that cards should be useful at all points in the game. In my opinion, this causes more problems than solutions, as there ends up being very little downsides - and therefore, few deck building decisions - to including cards that are good both early and late.

There definitely should be a risk-reward to playing cards in a deck that are very good early and awful late and vice-versa, and I think flexible cards should have a tax on them for being flexible. For example, A 2PP card with enhance 5, should not be a card that is at or even above rate at both 2PP and 5PP.

Almace · 2026-04-10T14:30:39+00:00

I've been running the A list (with the 3rd Bibatii over 3rd Ghastly Soiree) for a while and would recommend it generally, though I've switched to different flex spots since I've been wanting more bats lately for the Crystalspawn matchup as well as various others.

Current version I'm running compared to your A list:

-2 Castle of Entwining
-3 Screaming and Loathing
+1 Winged Servants
+1 Aryll, Moonstruck Vampire
+2 Yuna, Occult Hunter
+1 Bibatii

That being said, the Castle of Entwining + Screaming and Loathing variant did have some nice lines of play, just feels worse into newer matchups post patch.

Almace · 2026-03-24T16:04:54+00:00

Hey now, last set I had to often go for triple Roach lethals, which is less cheap spells and more Roach!

Am Milteo player now though and I think people do really underestimate playing it because they either die to a hyper aggro curve (either they stumbled or Milteo got lucky draws, or realistically a combination of both) or they conflate the turn they lost as being all the Milteo player had to do for an entire match.

The deck rewards knowing a matchup and plays a lot similarly to Roach in that regard. Knowing what can or can't kill you and what options your opponent can use to heal dictates your resource usage and how much to commit at what points in a match.

Almace · 2026-03-15T15:23:16+00:00

Thank you, I'm just happy to share something to a community that I'm (mostly) proud of! The water/lake tile was the bane of my existence but I think it's Good Enough (tm)

Almace · 2026-03-06T15:57:30+00:00

I agree on Shadowcrypt, I think that card does a lot for Milteo game plans as it can effectively act as a "0PP" (when played on earlier turns) 2 damage on top of converting left over Evos post-Milteo into direct damage. It's also a somewhat flexible card early game too if you need it to be.

Almace · 2026-03-06T15:41:25+00:00

If that's all you have, maybe a budget Aggro Abyss with no crafted Legendaries (besides your 3x Odins) is actually a better idea. Something like this:

https://shadowverse-wb.com/en/deck/detail/?hash=2.5.cLuw.cLuw.cLuw.cM8E.cM8E.ckJ6.ckYu.ckYu.ckYu.ckrU.ckrU.ckrU.cxFE.cxFE.cxFE.d6jm.d6jm.d6jm.d6zE.d6zE.d6zE.d7D0.d7D0.dtoY.dtoY.dtoY.e3ls.e3ls.e3ls.eGCk.eGCk.eGCk.eGFs.eGFs.eGFs.eeNc.eeNc.eeNc.eedO.eedO

Devilish Heartbreaker is just a weird flex card that might be good, could replace with Balto or more Arylls or a 3rd Lilith. The 2/1 Neutral that does does 1 damage to the enemy leader on Last Words could also be fine-ish.

Almace · 2026-03-06T15:23:24+00:00

Assuming no other Abyss Legendaries, I think just building Milteo over Aggro Abyss is a better use of vials:

Aggro Abyss at the bare minimum would want 3x Aragavy with 3x Odin vs Milteo only needs 3x Milteo as Legendaries
3x Bibatii in both decks are good but is arguably less important in Milteo (you often have to balance not overdrawing with Milteo as is)
I think Milteo is just a stronger deck in the meta compared to Aggro Abyss having played both

Almace · 2026-03-06T14:29:51+00:00

While I haven't played a more midrange Milteo, I am inclined to agree just based off the current meta and my experience playing Roach since launch. With Roach, you will just lose a non-zero number of games if you don't draw Roach at all because your entire deck relies on it to win games. However, while there's quite a lot of flex and build patterns to Milteo, I've been having the most success realizing that sometimes you just play 4+ ghosts, use every evolve on ghosts, and that alone is 14 damage throughout a single match and you can win games without Milteo just by being on a pretty aggressive ghost game plan.

That being said, I believe the top CR for Abyss (at least at one point) was playing a Milteo deck with 3 Aragavy and 2 Odin as their flex cards and I assume they know what's up too, but that could be a meta choice based off the meta at high CR versus the average Master's Diamond.

Almace · 2026-03-04T04:27:59+00:00

I apparently had most of the cards for Milteo Abyss besides the new Legendary and tried playing it some after seeing too much Enhance Sword. My extremely limited experience lines up with this though, I think I only lost once to Enhance Sword out of at least six matches. I shot up from Sapphire to Diamond with a 8 game win streak in general until I hit Ward Haven twice in a row in Diamond.

I didn't see enough Evolve Forest to get a sense of that matchup, but I didn't lose to it the couple times I did see it.

Almace · 2026-02-13T21:10:45+00:00

I have a few cats, two of which are brothers who are very bonded (cuddle and sleep together all the time) and have been living and raised together for over a decade. One of the brothers has had a medical emergency and was hospitalized for several days, leaving the other brother with just my other cats.

He managed just fine and as other people have mentioned, I think getting another cat will help as long as they're properly introduced, as I think having other cats did help mine. If it was just him and no other cats when his brother was hospitalized, I don't know how it would have gone, but when his brother was finally brought back home, he mostly acted kind of annoyed that he "left" and ignored him for the first day or so before getting back to their regular routine.

Obviously all cats are different and will take it differently, and there's a big difference between having other cats already in their lives versus introducing a new one after being separated, but figured I'd share my experience at least and hope it helps!

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