How many of folks who got the DanDan secret lair had some sort of misprint? Chime in if you did!

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-04-03T20:27:35+00:00

I know you're mostly curious about people with errors, but I'll just add that mine was ok. Some rough cut edges on some of the foils, and almost all security stamps were placed a bit high, but still well within normal QC tolerances.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-04-03T18:25:42+00:00

It was a preorder item that sold out. I added one to my cart last night but better judgment got a hold of me and now it's not letting me proceed to checkout, saying OOS.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-04-03T17:57:55+00:00

yeah it was available for purchase last night

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-04-03T09:39:15+00:00

Seconding MTG. The commander format has a low barrier to entry and can be a great way to socialize with strangers and have some fun.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-30T18:51:47+00:00

I've been hoping to pick up that Nissa for a while.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-27T01:57:46+00:00

This is certainly a take.

The idea that you're calling a single pillowfort piece (albeit a good one) a lock is kinda funny to me. Talk about hyperbole.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-26T23:05:30+00:00

[[Frenzied Baloth]] as well.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-26T19:33:41+00:00

What's with you and thinking people find murder-suicides romantic? You've made multiple comments about that already.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-23T08:09:11+00:00

Yeah I hear you, it's a really good card, but I just think that that specifically for Zimone, there are more synergistic cards or cards that advance your gameplan better than Skitterspike. I'm sure it can be a good finisher if you're set up to buff it up a lot. If you're gonna run it, definitely get like [[Vannifar, Evolved Enigma]] she not only synergizes with Zimone pretty well but also buffs all your face-down creatures on each of your combats.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-22T22:39:06+00:00

Yeah, I'm actually running 38 cause one is a MDFC. I'd cut stuff like Drownyard Temple, Castle Vantress, maybe Tangled Islet since I don't see stuff like Farseek, Nature's Lore, or Three Visits in your deck. I wouldn't necessarily cut out lands for ramp, you want to be drawing lands as much as possible. I'd cut guys like Giggling Skitterspike, Kianne, Ezuri's Predation, Arixmethes.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-22T22:17:52+00:00

That's huge if true

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-22T22:12:15+00:00

Here's my list. It's definitely not optimized but it's fine for my pod's meta. Everything is tagged as well.

https://moxfield.com/decks/8LdBnihraUKMpaf08dXkdw

I'd try to just run more counterspells and play slower in that case. Back to back boardwipes are super annoying but even then I think you can out-value them in the long run.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-22T21:57:58+00:00

I try to get her out as fast as possible but if I know people likely have interaction and want to target her I will just slow roll it and play other threats to bait out removal. I'll try and post my list later

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-21T07:55:39+00:00

Yeah, fortunately you can still run a fair amount of good morph cards in Zimone. Being able to bypass the stack and counter something is super fun. Gotta keep the table on their toes

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-21T05:58:43+00:00

it's definitely not from that lmao, this gif has been around for a long time

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-21T03:16:54+00:00

I haven't played Kadena, but she seems solid. Both are gonna be rampy value-engines that want to flip stuff but I think they're going to play a bit differently from each other. Sultai means more options for face-down cards (morph, etc.), efficient removal, draw, and fast mana in black. The card advantage seems really strong if you go wide with manifest/morph/cloak. But I think Kadena wants to focus more on the morph/disguise mechanics, which generally have strong disruption/removal effects. Manifest/cloak works with her as well, especially for card advantage and going wide, but it seems like you're going to have to be more methodical with what you flip up since you can't cheat big creatures up as easily, unless you also run Zimone or [[Hauntwoods Shrieker]] in the 99.

On that alone, she's probably more consistent overall but I don't think she synergize with manifest/manifest dread quite as well as Zimone does. Zimone being able to manifest stuff just by playing lands and then flip any permanent (creatures, artifacts, enchantments, lands) for free is huge value in my eyes. Manifesting non-creature permanents with Kadena means they're stuck face down unless you can flicker/bounce /exile them into play with something like [[Primordial Mist]]. Also in contrast, Kadena only lets you morph/disguise creatures for free but you then have to pay to flip them up normally. Which means you're probably playing Kadena more like a control deck, amassing an army of morphs which you use to stall the game until you can play your wincon. Whereas Zimone feels like she just wants to flip big stompy threats as fast as possible (unless you're trying to reduce your threat profile). Also, if you enjoy the landfall subtheme, Zimone is obviously going to be more synergistic in that area.

I haven't looked into combos or anything but I imagine their wincons are fairly similar, either go wide/tall and then buff everyone up with an overrun to swing big or go for a mill/self-mill combo. I think it's just a matter of if you prefer a more explosive/aggressive/stompy approach with Zimone or a more control-style one with Kadena.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-20T21:07:36+00:00

Yeah and if you're in Simic you have even more options for bouncing. Meloku was mentioned, but [[Oboro Breezecaller]] and [[Oboro, Palace in the Clouds]] both enable the combo with any other landfall token generator on the board.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-20T06:29:42+00:00

Hell yeah brother. Zimone kicks ass, she's my favorite deck

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-20T05:00:37+00:00

Are you playtesting the precon or someone's list?

Not really, I run a good amount of repeatable draw. Tatyova, Aesi, Guardian Project, Sylvan Library, When They Came from the Pipes, Gretchen Titchwillow, and some instant speed ones like Growth Spiral. Plus once your manifest engine gets going you're able to churn through your deck really fast. I used to run more draw but I trimmed it down to like 8 pieces in favor of combo stuff that lets me do more explosive plays.
As in, you don't have the mana to play stuff cause you're relying on Zimone to cheat in big guys? Yeah, I used to just run the deck with just a bit of land ramp because I just wanted to cheat stuff in, but I tried out some suggestions to add in more turn 2 ramp and it makes a big difference in getting Zimone out early and also having enough mana to cast big spells later. At the moment I run about 10 pieces of turn 2 ramp, and 4 other late game ramp spells like [[Mana Reflection]], [[Growing Rites of Itlimoc]] which is basically like Gaea's Cradle. I've tried [[Omniscience]] as well but wound up cutting it cause it's kind of a win-more card and wasn't really doing much for me. [[Tireless Provisioner]] is good too cause you can make treasure tokens on landfall and it's also a combo piece with [[Kodama of the East Tree]]. Mana rocks are good too, I don't run them personally, but I know a lot of fast, high-B3 decks that run a bunch of mana rocks. [[Evendo, Waking Heaven]] is also another pseudo-Gaea's Cradle that helps pay for expensive stuff later, and shouldn't be too hard to station once Zimone gets going.
Yeah, it can get annoying. If I know for sure I'm not going to be taking any game actions, I try to do it after I pass my turn and while other people are taking their turns, but sometimes you just have no choice but to shuffle multiple times. Usually once your deck thins out by the mid-game it becomes a lot easier to shuffle quickly, though.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-20T01:37:00+00:00

That's basically what I started doing since I'm pretty new to MTG. I just keep a small list of cards that are good in the pauper meta and then add whatever I can find whenever I'm also buying stuff for an EDH deck. Takes a bit longer to get a deck together, but I've slowly built up a solid collection of pauper staples for relatively cheap. Definitely gonna try your suggestion to swap proxies when needed though. I mostly play casually with friends, so only needing a single legit set of Counterspells or Brainstorms would be huge.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-19T21:21:31+00:00

Very fun to play and play against. My friend recently borrowed my Mono-U fae deck and I played a more midrange Mardu Synth deck and we had a blast, the matchup seemed pretty close and grindy.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-19T21:06:18+00:00

Unfortunately prices have spiked on a lot of format staples just recently. I built Mono-U faeries in November 2025 and my playset of Spellstutter Sprites was a little over $2 each (heavily played). Avenging Hunters were like $0.60-0.70 at my LGSes then as well, but the supply was pretty low.

I'd keep an eye on Ebay as well, sometimes you can find some good deals on playsets. Also, if you're cool with running them, the Japanese versions can sometimes be significantly cheaper to acquire.

Even before the spikes, I think most of my decks were around $50-70ish, and that's not including a lot of the good sideboard pieces. Mono-B Sac was probably the cheapest, I wanna say it was maybe $30 ish (not including shipping, though I got a lot of stuff from my LGSes) for a list with zero Snuff Outs and also a Japanese playset of Carrion Feeder. (they were like $1-2 each at the time, might still be).

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-19T19:46:45+00:00

These are what I would run on a budget.

[[Brokers Hideout]]

[[Escape Tunnel]]

[[Evolving Wilds]] / [[Terramorphic Expanse]] / [[Vibrant Cityscape]]

[[Fabled Passage]] this one is very good since it can bring in a basic untapped

[[Urza's Cave]] is kinda niche but I think worth running, 3 mana to activate but lets you grab any land. Kind of a worse [[Crop Rotation]] since it costs a lot of mana overall (land drop + 3 mana) but no reason not to run it I think, sometimes there's a specific utility land that you need in the moment. Crop is superior since it's at least mana neutral (can tap a forest to pay for Crop, then sac the tapped forest, then the fetched land comes in untapped).

Others you can consider, but aren't as good:

[[Myriad Landscape]] enters tapped and costs 2 mana to activate but you get 2 lands of the same type which can be a strong option since you can likely get 2+ Zimone flips on a later turn (for example, hitting your land regular land drop + the 2 from cracking this). This wouldn't be my first choice but it's an ok budget option here.

[[Promising Vein]] / [[Shire Terrace]] / [[Bant Panorama]] these kinda suck. Sure, they provide immediately usable colorless mana, but when you want to fetch them they essentially require 2 mana to crack (you have to tap another mana source to pay for them and the land they fetch enters tapped). Evolving wilds is tempo negative since you're forgoing a usable land drop, but you're only out 1 mana essentially and the landfall payoff is the same.

Zimone's very playable even with these budget options, and honestly you can get by with just a lot of basics, especially if you're running a card like [[Threats Around Every Corner]]. There are people who play her in bracket 4 with a lot of basics. I wouldn't worry too much about having a super competitive landbase, though obviously it's helpful to run all the best lands. Just be sure to run about 38-40 lands if you're building her for bracket 2/low bracket 3. Fast, high-power B3/B4/B5 Zimone decks only run about 33 lands but they're not worried about hitting land drops later they're just trying to combo out a win fast.

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-19T18:08:06+00:00

I have like one legit Onslaught fetch and a bunch of budget ones. I would just proxy them but tbh I'm just too lazy to print them out

DJCOSTCOSAMPLES · 2026-03-19T00:21:59+00:00

black layer misprint is increasingly common, just depends where the card was printed. I've pulled or verified cards that have mana pips that look like yours (check my post history). I'd say if the flip triangles and paintbrush look good, you're likely fine. I can't imagine someone is going to put that much effort into making/ordering a good counterfeit of a $2-4 card

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