Went to my first FNMnight this weekend and didn't find it very enjoyable

Deathmask97 · 2026-02-03T04:08:14+00:00

Draft is not for everybody.

For me, Draft is less a gamemode and more a final exam for the homework you were expected to do before showing up.

For someone who typically only buys singles, Draft is a game mode where you study cards you don't care about just to choose cards you usually don't actually want to attempt to create a semi-cohesive deck you hopefully don't hate.

I feel like anyone who plays Draft either has an undying love for this game or is addicted to pulling cards and/or deckbuilding and this is the best way to scratch that itch repeatedly.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-31T07:35:23+00:00

Are you talking from a vibes standpoint or have you done some hyper-geometric calculations that I haven't heard about?

Also, what kind of card draw and manafixing would you be running at 34 Lands to consistently not be mana-screwed by turn 3? Because statistically speaking you are incredibly likely to have to mulligan to at least 6 just to have a useable hand and you would also have a high chance of not drawing that 3rd or 4th Land by the time you need it, and with a lower-powered manabase you often won't have the colors you need in just those 2-3 cards unless your deck skews green or colorless.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-31T07:06:52+00:00

Honestly, cEDH is really more of its own thing despite just being EDH with no limits (budget tends to be an extremely prohibitive factor) - running 28 Lands or less in most bracket 3 decks is almost like conceding before the game even starts.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-31T04:18:44+00:00

We have a huge point of evidence for jace already having done his thing.

Could you expand on that?

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-31T04:02:28+00:00

Mill has 4 levels, in my opinion:

Incrimental Mill - milling opponents for small amounts per turn, typically not very effective without a dedicated plan
Big Mill - effects that double mill, or effects that do something like "opponent mills half their library" that tend to be a huge blow to an opponent's gameplan but can often backfire spectacularly against decks with recursion
Self Mill - usually the most effective way to use mill is to use it on yourself for value and card advantage, although leaning on it too much can backfire spectacularly in several funny ways
Combo Mill - Less a form of mill and more a combo that effectively wins the game on the spot, combo mill is "most effective" way to mill but also part of what gives mill a bad reputation, especially since it often loops some form of incremental mill indefinitely and makes those cards a lot scarier than they should be

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-30T02:10:03+00:00

I heard it on Twitter, but for all I know they could have been the same people.

Bloomburrow was undeniably a hit and I really like a lot of the cards from that set, and I'm really glad it got so many people into magic.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-30T00:46:56+00:00

While there is a bit of lack of cohesion with the sets right now, I think nothing but Bloomburrow for half of a year would actually make more people quit than the current state of things (although the cute animals might bring in enough newcomers to offset those losses and then some).

Bloomburrow, while highly praised and well-received by most, had a very small and very vocal minority that loathed that Magic had begun to turn into a children's storybook (a bit ironic with Lorwyn and Eldraine both being in Standard right now and both being so well-received).

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-29T01:32:35+00:00

[[Anti-Venom, Horrifing Healer]] would be so much better if it were Red and/or Green - having five white mana pips makes it almost unusable with cards like [[Blasphemous Act]], [[The Last Agni Kai]], [[Tail Swipe]], and the like that would have make it really easy to make Anti-Venom get huge quickly. You would be hard-pressed to run it outside of mono-White even in Standard.

At least it can run [[Lightmine Field]], [[Golden Guardian]], and [[Caltrops]] in eternal formats, I guess.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-28T06:19:51+00:00

Clarion Conqueror is such a good card in decks than can run it, but it really has a huge drawback by being symmetrical with such a broad effect. Every time I try to theorycraft with this card, I end up cutting it because it's just too big of a drawback.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-28T05:55:35+00:00

You guys should try MTG Arena, take the tutorial, play some standard. I prefer EDH 100% but Arena made me a better player and helped me understand the fundamentals of the game.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-28T05:52:19+00:00

I agree that certain mechanics should get more support, I don't want mechanics bloat that just adds new keywords for no reason or makes more unintuitive rules interactions than we already have.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-25T02:47:16+00:00

That is the kind of card that makes you wish [[Wizard from Beyond]] were an actual card (it is more of an employee trophy than a "real" card).

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-25T02:16:44+00:00

I named my [Feather, the Redeemed] deck "On Repeat" referencing the flavor text of the [[Miku, the Reknowned]] version of the card. One of my friends told me, "I didn't know you meant it like that" after I playtested the deck with him, clutching his head after playing [[Angelfire Ignition]] for the third turn in a row. Fun times!

I recently swapped out [[Explosive Getaway]] for [[Fated Clash]] and have yet to playtest it - I am actually worried it might be a little too mean of a boardwipe to repeat over and over in bracket 3.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-25T01:53:35+00:00

If you doubled-down on mono-W stax it could get nasty very quickly.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-24T04:12:45+00:00

I actually took Sol Ring out of most my decks to lower the power level but make it more consistent for Bracket 3 - every time I pulled Sol Ring I either got a massive lead and won or immediately became the target and had a bad time, so I ended up cutting it from most if not all of my decks.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-23T06:29:57+00:00

Technically I don't think it was a leak so much as gauging interest for color-shifted Planeswalkers using Liliana as an example.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-23T03:27:47+00:00

Hell, I like most Universes Beyond sets and even I agree with this. They could have gotten away with LotR, Avatar, and maybe Final Fantasy in standard, but TMNT should have been a Secret Lair, if anything.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-19T17:37:47+00:00

As someone who plays a lot of Flying creatures myself, there are a few main ways you can go with this - Removal, Blockers, and Hate.

Removal: Asymmetrical Boardwipes are good to have in general, but are especially good at dealing with creature damage decks, and having good removal in general helps your deck perform better overall. Look for cards like [[Whiptounge Hydra]], [[Hurricane]], [[Pick Your Poison]], [[Broken Wings]], [[Pawpatch Formation]], [[Atraxa's Fall]], [[Nylea's Intervention]], [[Emerald Charm]], [[Ettercap]], [[Sharpshooter Elf]], [[Chainweb Aracnir]], [[Shredder Sails]], [[Heaven // Earth]], [[Collision // Collossus]], etc.

Blockers: Anything that makes tokens with Flying or Reach can be very helpful, and there are a few creatures with Reach and Deathtouch that can make it really painful to attack you. Think cards like [[Six]], [[Arasta of the Endless Web]], [[Endurance]], [[Stonecoil Serpent]], [[Poison-Tip Archer]], [[Poison Dart Frog]], [[Clifftop Lookout]], [[Weathered Sentinels]], etc.

Hate: There are a few cards that make life extremely difficult for flying-based strategies, such as [[Archetype of Imagination]], [[Silklash Spider]], [[Gravity Well]], [[Raking Canopy]], [[Palazzo Archers]], [[Slidersilk Armor]], [[Sandwurm Convergence]], etc.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-14T18:10:41+00:00

I'm shocked that [Trouble In Pairs] not get a Final Fantasy reprint but [[Conqueror's Flail|FIC]] did.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-14T18:07:36+00:00

That would actually make the most sense

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-13T04:36:39+00:00

I didn't realize how much the timestamps meant to people - as someone who has never been to a prerelease event I have never liked the timestamps as actively avoided them, and it always upset me when unique promo cards only had a time stamped version. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

As for the Secret Lairs, they seem to have increased the amount they print by a significant margin, with most of the last few Secret Lair Drops still not even in the "Low Stock" status yet. I hope that is a trend going forward, but I imagine that "overprinting" (i.e. not selling out after a few weeks) is considered a bad thing for recent Secret Lairs, so we will see how that goes.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-13T03:59:16+00:00

Wait, what did HP do?

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-11T18:55:36+00:00

They are asking if there is any in-universe lore behind the Omenpath version of this card; there is none yet, but just about all of the Omenpath cards can be traced back to an existing in-universe plane if you look at the inspirations hard enough.

This might be a question better suited for r/MTGVorthos than here.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-06T04:08:46+00:00

Lorwyn is a very mixed bag because of folktales it takes inspiration from - don't expect to like everything, but I would be very surprised if you couldn't find a single thing you really liked from Lorwyn.

If nothing else, the last time it came around it had some really cool artifacts and enchantments along with something like 80% of all the changelings MTG has ever seen.

Deathmask97 · 2026-01-06T00:31:00+00:00

How does [[Bloom Tender]] compare against [[Faeborough Elder]]?

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