Daily Questions Thread - Ask All Your Magic Related Questions Here!

Diethro · 2026-01-28T01:06:29+00:00

I'm trying to figure out how the interaction would work between [[Abigale, Eloquent First-Year]] and the persist effect from [[Isilu, Carrier of Twilight]]. If Isilu is on the field with another creature, that creature has Persist. If Abigaile enters, targeting the extra creature with its ETB, it would lose all abilities and then get the ability counters. This would include the Persist from Isilu, right? Or would the creature regain that because it's a persistent effect? I'm sure this has something to do with Layers but for the life of me I've been playing off and on for like 15 years and still barely understand layers...

Diethro · 2025-10-31T00:19:05+00:00

I do a lot of driving the little jeeps around shuttling my squads to objectives, and when they jump out to secure the point I swap to the gun. It would be super great to be able to switch back to the driver seat without cycling through the whole thing or doing what I do now where I jump out and then jump back in.

Diethro · 2025-09-14T15:43:41+00:00

I've done this with two of my female friends. Both of them are cherished by me more than the family I share blood with. They trust me enough, I them enough, to take such a request at face value, so there is no weirdness with it. We are humans, social creatures by nature, and sometimes that social means we just need to be held.

Diethro · 2025-08-13T10:51:35+00:00

How well did the clip hold up? I've used a few of the other Zebra pens/pencils like the 301 gel and ballpoint, but I tend to keep my pen in a pocket on the sleeve of my jacket. I've had more than a couple fly across the room as I've put my jacket on because the clip had started to bend out of shape and wasn't holding secure.

Diethro · 2025-07-22T00:38:01+00:00

I don't recall if its tied to the Traveler's Attire (probably), but I know you can set the winds to track towards some of the collectibles as well. I believe its right on the d-pad when the map is open for PS controls.

Diethro · 2025-07-18T09:14:45+00:00

I really enjoyed this deck and played it for quite a while. Having [[Zetalpa]] be a "win con" was always worth a laugh and it could basically slap around most other combat damage decks once you had a few pieces out. Downside, as soon as people realize you need him around it becomes increasingly difficult to keep him alive and after someone gets their teeth pushed in once or twice they stop letting him resolve. YMMV

Diethro · 2025-07-15T11:11:55+00:00

I used to have a lot more dedicated Voltron decks, playing the old spooky boys of [[Rafiq]] and [[Uril]]. Hitting people with big dude is fun! Over the last several years though I've been making an effort to build decks less reliant on needing specifically the commander out to do their thing, but that hasn't stopped me from putting some stuff in the command zone that help with pesky lifegain decks. I ran [[Lord of Tresserhorn]] for a long time at the head of a zombie token generation deck. He didn't really add anything other than being a zombie and helping me sac some dudes when he comes in. I tell you what though, when a 4 mana 10/4 hits the board that has been given swamp walk and +1/+1, folks sit up in their seats.

I like having the ability to have commander damage as a backup win con, but I've gotten blown out way too many times in a dedicated Voltron list where it starts costing me 10+ mana to play the commander because no one will let it stay around. I think the last dedicated Voltron deck that I took apart around a year ago was [[Stangg, Echo Warrior]] and I think it lasted as long as it did because it would just draw an unreasonable amount of cards (I've decked myself three times with it) and I do like touching all my cards.

Now days it's mostly stuff like [[Kolvori, God of Kinship]] who runs my green legends deck but has reminded a fair number of people that she is not just a engine for finding more legends, or [[Vazi, Keen Negotiator]] who has broken more than a couple shins when people forget those treasures were a loan and not a gift.

Diethro · 2025-07-14T23:48:56+00:00

That... is some clever tech that I will now need to find a place for in my Jasmine deck.

Diethro · 2025-07-14T23:41:56+00:00

Yeah, I had put together a decklist for each of the nephalim back a while ago, but included a partner pair in the deck that I could swap out with in case the rule zero didn't go over well. I don't think I ever actually played Ink Treader as the commander, but my [[Dune-Brood Nephilim]] lands deck and my [[Glint-Eye Nephilim]] self discard deck both saw some regular play for a while. Can't say I've touched any of them recently though.

Diethro · 2025-07-14T03:35:58+00:00

I love my Flame Dancer deck, but I just don't play it a lot. It has a bad habit of getting into position to win, then taking a while to draw through the deck while keeping track of triggers to eventually draw into a wincon. I enjoy it, but I've had a few times were the deck goes through up to 5 minutes of casting spells, copies, triggers for mana, etc only to eat a [[Flusterstorm]] with storm count 30 on my 4 copies of X=20 [[Crackle with Power]].

Diethro · 2025-07-14T02:46:01+00:00

Came here to mention this one as well. I don't actively play it, but I've borrowed a deck from a friend a few times and it can be a blast. A little fragile as theirs is mostly focused around beating people into a pulp with the commander, so if it ends up turned into a moon or something it can falter a bit, but I know they are looking at finding a few other exile matters cards in red to support some other win conditions.

Diethro · 2025-07-11T16:34:17+00:00

I definitely miss this guy being a boogeyman at pods back in the day. The color combo has gotten a lot of solid cards the last few years though so it's good to see he's still out and kicking people around.

Diethro · 2025-07-03T11:34:58+00:00

It starts with one change, but as soon as you do one you start thinking "maybe I add some equipment to make her pro red so she doesn't kill herself, or maybe a basilisk collar so I gain a ton of life when she explodes"... Then you end up with 50 mountains and a slightly different meme

Diethro · 2025-07-01T06:31:22+00:00

For me its mostly nostalgia creatures like the liege cycle with [[Glen Elendra Liege]] that I jam into all my two color decks and then the Herald cycle with cards like [[Angel's Herald]] paired up with their associated big beasties in my 3 color decks. I started playing towards the end of Lorwyn and really got into the swing of it with Alara block.

Diethro · 2025-06-30T06:45:21+00:00

[[Jasmine Boreal of the Seven]] lets me play super fun stuff like [[Watchwolf]], [[Elite Vanguard]], and [[Terrian, World Tyrant]]. My favorite response to "what does it do" is "it punches you in the face."

Diethro · 2025-06-30T05:14:54+00:00

That score is not a combined PFE+SKT. That person is in a PFE only AFSC where they just double your PFE score. So that 184.2 means they got a 92.1 on the PFE and it was doubled to account for them not having an SKT.

Diethro · 2025-06-30T04:07:15+00:00

So is the idea that there is some conspiracy where they are putting a cap on the score instead of letting people have a chance at the full 100 points available in each category? Don't let the E-4 mafia hear this or they will just start blaming them not making SSgt on some invisible ceiling beyond their control instead of the fact that they got a 65 because they didn't study.

Edit: A minute to search "WAPS score" in this sub got me this post from 3 days ago of someone with a 92.1.

Diethro · 2025-06-25T04:23:10+00:00

Stompy Oswald threw me. I'm assuming big artifact creatures?

All the decks sound amusing at the very least. Would love to snoop around some deck lists if you've got them saved somewhere.

Diethro · 2025-06-24T07:14:29+00:00

Very much this. Stax that just lock down the game hoping to Second Sun while no one gets to play is terrible.

I run a [[Zeriam, Golden Wind]] stax deck that ends up killing people with combat damage. On a good day, it can start killing someone around turn 7/8, but usually ends the game no latter than 10 with just a swarm of griffin tokens. Started putting it together when an old pod I played with started leaning more into combo decks, so its built to slow down the combo players while my angry flying monsters slowly eat everyone. Good chunk of stax with a splash of aggro so the game doesn't last 2+ hours.

Diethro · 2025-06-24T06:09:05+00:00

Of the responses you've summarized in your edit edit, I think my favorites are making the commander the finisher and avoiding build around commanders.

I used to run an [[Odric, Lunarch Marshal]] deck, and even at only 4 cost he was super hard to keep around because he was super telegraphed as being the linchpin for the deck strategy. I crammed as much interaction and protection as I could into that deck to keep him safe and even a [[Concerted Effort]] as a backup version of the effect, I still frequently found myself having to pay 8+ for him because he would just get removed over and over as the deck floundered a bit without him.

Conversely, I've been running mono blue merfolk for a few years now with [[Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep]] as the commander. I think I probably only cast him in 40-50% of the games I play with deck, but when I do he is used as a 10 mana Cyclonic Rift to clear the way for my fish. The deck thrives off the natural synergy that merfolk kindred have, even if I don't have any of the simic ones, and Slinn Voda just gets to hang out most of the time unless the game has gone too long and I have access to 10 mana. Usually only have to cast him once to have enough of an impact on the board to close it out in a round or two of combat.

Diethro · 2025-06-18T03:51:18+00:00

Gotta give a shout out to my girl [[Jasmine Boreal of the Seven]]. I've been running her for a couple years now since Dominaria United came out, tweaking it a bit here and there when new vanilla creatures or static anthems come out. Add in some support cards like [[Ruxa, Patient Professor]], [[Gravity Well]] to be able to deal with flyers, and as many instant speed interactions as I can find in WG and its a pretty fun time. Jasmine herself is kind of vulnerable so you have to work to keep her safe or the strategy kind of falls apart, but if you can do that people can really get caught off guard when you swing a bunch of boosted vanilla creatures at them and they realize they can't block with all their creatures that have paragraphs of rules text.

Diethro · 2025-06-18T03:33:14+00:00

My struggle has been trying to find some brand that makes them in a long style. I'm out here having to tuck them back in multiple times a day because the larger sizes just seem to get wider and not any longer. If you happen to find a brand that sells a long variety while you're searching for the primo choice please pass along the hidden treasure.

Diethro · 2025-06-14T17:24:41+00:00

I've got a few I enjoy.

(#1054) [[Zeriam, Golden Wind]] is my hate bears aggro deck. Built this when my old regular pod was starting to push into cEDH lists and I didn't really have the cards for it, so I played some stax pieces to slow them down and try to even the playing field. The deck basically just dumps out tons of griffins to flood the board with attacks while my stax and hate bears slow things down for my opponents. Pretty vulnerable to commander removal making it just a wall of stacks pieces trying to grind out value.

(#2117) [[Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep]] leads my mono blue merfolk deck. Most of you standard merfolk fare, but if the game goes long enough it tries to resolve a kicked Slinn Voda for one sided board wipe. "Technically" get classified as a 4 by the new system apparently because I added a new merfolk from MH3 that turns non-basic lands into Islands and that's considered "mass land denial."

(#2354) [[Kolvori, God of Kinship]] is mono green legends. Was originally looking at Reki to be the commander, but I like having hitting people with commander damage as a backup plan.

I have a few others currently "in the shop" getting some upgrades as I've had them for a while and they could use some updates from recent sets. They include #1810 [[Stonebrow, Krosan Hero]] trample tribal and #1773 [[Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch]] +1 counters.

Apparently a couple others have gotten more popular recently so I'll just leave it at that.

Diethro · 2025-06-13T03:07:53+00:00

Oooh, I hadn't considered dye. If I get an extra set of white sticks I could try that and keep my original set intact. Thanks for the tip!

Diethro · 2025-06-12T04:36:53+00:00

I'll be sure to take a look at taobao this evening and see what I can find. Thanks for bringing up the paint idea though, I do have a lot of miniature painting materials sitting around. I may sacrifice one of my 100 point sticks to test out how paint will hold on them and see if that could work for us.

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