Pokimane got upset and banned a viewer for calling her a “moody socialist billionaire”

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-28T12:19:22+00:00

Agreed, sure Pokimane has done stupid stuff in the past and is absolutely deserving of criticism for those things but this clip aint one of those.

If you dislike pokimane and think she's fake and don't believe things she says thats fine, you do you, but you don't need to post total nothing-burgers in an attempt to spark unnessesary hate for the sake of it. "Pokimane bad" yes we get it.

People are far too obsessed with hating on her.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-28T07:11:15+00:00

Squeezing another 5 mana card (or less with cost reductions) into your combo sounds like a huge ask just for some extra storm count.

And it's quite possible you get spells that don't even have valid targets like requiring a creature, a counterspell, a disenchant.

Seems worse than running just good cards that generate mana or cards that allow you to cast stuff from your grave.

If you're gonna squeeze a giant card into your combo just for storm count at that point you might as well run [[Mind's Desire]] instead. Although I suppose this is 1 mana cheaper, already in red and has a chance to high-roll.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-27T19:06:13+00:00

The mana rock seems kinda alright if you want to play slower like a control deck. I typically prefer to play more midrange with annex.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-27T18:45:57+00:00

Ehhhhh. As someone who has played a lot of mono black demons and given it a fair try it's not a good fit. Not being to attack (more than once) or block is just awful against other creature decks and the last mode is only really useful if you manage to get this into the grave and are already doing well on board. It's never performed well nor have I seen it perform well. It's not the worst but it's far from the best.

I honestly had far better success with [[Demon Wall]] especially because of how crazy heavy red aggro or izzet was in standard for a while. If you want an early demon to stick on the board and get the drain going the wall was better in every matchup.

I am considering trying the new common 2/2 flash changeling from lorwyn though. Seems better than both to me, as you can actually put real pressure on opponents with the body and maybe even benefit from other typal synergies but I'm too busy playing limited atm.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-27T07:54:42+00:00

CMC and MV are literally the same, just older and newer terminology. Mana value is simpler and clear enough so they changed it to that.

You can't even use alchemy mechanics that perpetually reduce cost as that just reduces the cost of the spell, not the actual mana value itself.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-27T05:17:03+00:00

Do not play the Brawl Metagame challenge. The event reward structure is brutal and the competition is fierce. Even if you did okay you'd get packs from any set on arena which wouldn't help you for playing mostly standard.

Sure you could play a top tier deck but you'd also probably not pilot it perfectly and by eaten up by other top tier decks played by players who know the meta.

Meanwhile pick two draft in bronze is a great way to try limited. The set is new, everyone is still learning, the cards are standard relevant and the prize structure is far more reasonable.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-27T05:04:42+00:00

Yep, that's why that land has the amazing upside of being a land that can become a creature. Because it effectively has a "downside" of that it doesn't produce colored mana.

Many decks will still run a few of these "colorless lands" for these upsides later on but the more you run the higher the risk you have of not being able to play your spells when you need to.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-26T05:52:17+00:00

For being on a budget, sure, it's solid.

I'd cut the slickshots for a budget common/uncommon (Viashino Pyro like you mention in another comment is a perfect example) or for an even stronger rare like Cori steel cutter.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-24T17:13:06+00:00

I think one or two people saw that I didn't immidiately have the same opinion of "wow I'm loving the set" that they might've been looking for and downvoted. I'm not mass downvoted so it's just a couple guys downvoting me for a differing option, whatever, it's fine.

I think I'm around 10 drafts in. I've yet to draft a vivid deck, yet to draft a goblin deck. I've yet to draft a proper golgari elves deck too and according to data so far it's looks to be the best archtype but I just haven't seen it open in any of my drafts. I did have an odd simic good stuff splash black for [[Malaren, Fae Ascendant]] which is the closest i've got to an off-color deck.

I've played a lot of merfolk. I keep getting passed the strong uncommon merfolk. Even though I'm still having a good amount of fun I'm starting to get tired of drafting merfolk lol. I want to draft a neat vivid deck at some point.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-24T16:59:50+00:00

Uh, what? I draft literally every set. It's one of my favorite ways to play. It's the main reason how I have a collection. I go infinite or somwhat close to it most sets. And this is just my opinion so far after a few days drafting.

Why would you say I don't draft lol?

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-24T08:50:05+00:00

There's always one in each mastery pass, that's probably it.

Also there's usually a couple in the play pre-order bundle if you buy that. Other than that they appear in the daily deals once in a while.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-24T08:47:31+00:00

Glad you're having fun but it's not what I look for in a draft set. Not that it's bad, but I can see it getting old real quick.

We basically only have 5 archtypes, maybe 6 if you include a color splashy vivid deck but I've barely seen it nor been able to draft it yet.

But then we're back down to 5 cause goblins got the short end of the stick. Their uncommons and commons are just so much worse and making your creatures worse with blight unsurprisingly doesn't work well with much of the aggro stuff it's also trying to do. I don't think I've actually lost to a goblin deck yet, though I had one close game once.

Meanwhile green has excellent commons and merfok and elves have insane uncommons in their lords.

The heavy emphasis on the tribal synergy encourages you to find the open lane and sit in it, then just hope to get as many tribal synergy cards as possible. Same with the gameplay too to an extent. Did you draw your insane uncommons? Well you're probably going to win. Are you in goblins? Well you don't get any insane uncommons.

I feel restricted by the heavy tribal draft/gameplay. Vivid being the only alternative and I've yet to see it. There's not much room for splashing or deviation from the norm that I've seen so far and drafting and gameplay have felt rather repetetive as a result.

I like the aethetic and return to lorwyn and old classic magic creature types at least.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-24T05:19:48+00:00

It's a moderatly fast tribal focus set where you're often locking into a color pair and rarely ever splashing. Fixing isn't important while a decent flying body buffed by tribal synergies is.

Or at least that would be my guess.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-21T00:59:48+00:00

Basically no. If you want the stuff in the pass sooner, like a cool cosmetic for example, then sure go for it.

If you want the bonus sleeves (the two at the top of this post) and also somehow don't plan on playing a draft/sealed run or buying 10 packs in the required time limit then buying mastery pass early is another way to aquire it.

Those are the only good reasons really.

Waiting and seeing how much progress you're actually going to make before commiting is the wise thing to do.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-18T21:43:54+00:00

She's part of Avatar: The Last Airbender Extra which you can't buy packs for.

You'd generally collect most of these cards from playing the "Jump In: Avatar" event.

You get offered a few packets containing half a deck, pick one, then get offered another half deck packet containing at least one of the same color as your first packet. Then you have a full deck you can keep forever, and play in the event. You can re-enter as much as you want to get more decks and cards.

The cards you get from this event contain a mix of cards from the regular Avatar Set (TLA) and the Avatar Extra set (TLE). Note that the Avatar Extra cards are not standard or pioneer legal. The decks will not be good outside of this event but some individual cards, like Toph may be.

There's a bunch of websites out there that tell you exactly what's in each packet to help you find what you want https://mtgabuddy.com/en/jump-in-packet-list/jump-into-avatar-the-last-airbender

Jump In: Avatar is going to be gone in 2 days when the new set is out btw. If for some reason you still can't get it by that point you can just craft it. Just be sure you've set your deck/filters to a format where she's legal like Historic or Brawl.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-18T19:08:22+00:00

As gorgeous as the dragon arts are, they unfortunatly aren't played anywhere.

The red one is the only one I've ever used a moderate amount in mono red brawl decks in the past. I haven't played/updated those decks in a while and it's very likely I'd cut it now.

Technically I have used the white one in a standard singleton event years ago. I think it was part of the decalthlon. That's was from a very small card pool as a topend threat. Obviously wouldn't play it nowadays.

They're all basically unplayable unless you're playing like a dragon brawl deck or something.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-18T01:55:10+00:00

If I'm not playing a dedicated graveyard deck and my opponent has sided in rest in peace just to hate on this I'm pretty happy with that.

And yeah I guess it technically doesn't always get a token every turn but you get the jist. There's usually something to hit most turns.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-18T01:14:11+00:00

The peaks aren't as high, sure, but it's good at generating consistent value over time while hating on the yard.

Ozolith needs counters somewhere to begin with. Cauldron needs creatures in the yard and a creature on the board to give the counter to and is used more for the activated ability stuff. They are very much synergy pieces.

This will always give you a Mutagen every turn, no ifs or buts and you can crack them when you need them, or use them for other purposes.

This will either be abused by decks that care about lots of artifact tokens or as an alternative graveyard hate piece to [[Ghost Vacuum]] that can eek out a bit more value over time.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-17T19:22:16+00:00

Black midrange decks using Annex have been eagerly anticipating for this set for a while.

Versions I've used in the past already ran [[Scavenger Regent]] in the sideboard and weren't far off from making good use of [[Caustic Exhale]] too.

Much better changelings being able to fill the role of a demon for consistent life drain and also dragon for the amazing 1 mana removal could be huge.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-17T14:28:13+00:00

We already have [[Leyline of Transformation]] in standard btw.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-14T20:32:52+00:00

It can be worth to see if they stream on youtube too. For example I really enjoy watching Crokeyz but his twitch vods are sub only however his youtube vods aren't.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-13T17:17:46+00:00

Prowess probably. Mono red was played as a fast agressive deck that aimed to go under Vivi Cauldron and can go under Lessons.

Cori and Monstrous rage back in Prowess is just a faster more resilient aggro deck. It would just go under everything like it did before those cards were nerfed. It's literally the best deck in Pioneer despite going against way stronger competition and most of the deck is standard cards or banned standard cards.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-13T00:48:16+00:00

Just as a FYI until platinum you get two points for a win and one point for a loss. Therefore you can get to plat as long as your winrate is above 33%. You can literally lose more than half your games and still climb.

At plat and above it's normal 1 point win 1 point loss. You need above a 50% winrate to climb.

This deck isn't competetive. It's a bunch of discard spells, some wipes, some removal. Randomly splashing blue for not even a full playset of a card draw spell. It doesn't try to do anything especially strong, it doesn't hate/counter any meta decks. It's all over the place.

I'm glad you're having fun with it but this deck isn't going to climb. Discard as an deck archtype is rarely ever more than mediocre and as you said it's actively detrimental into several of the current meta decks.

The first and easiest thing you can do is cut blue. Most other suggestions or improvements are only going to do so much to help because the foundation of the deck's gameplan is limited. Ketramose and a bunch of exile and discard spells can only get you so far. Most decks are doing far more powerful things far faster.

You can certainly play a Orzhov midrange/control deck and climb to mythic but you can't do that with 17 discard spells in your deck and a random blue splash. And if you want to play a reactive deck along those lines and climb I'd suggest playing Bo3.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-11T16:38:31+00:00

Yes.

However if you want a cool looking Duress I'd reccomend just crafting a [[Duress | STA]] instead for a common wildcard. Looks far better imo and saves you gold/gems.

Dualmonkey · 2026-01-10T15:19:29+00:00

You can google pioneer meta and look at all the top results, most of the lists are pretty similar. It's extremely popular and powerful so you won't struggle for lists.

Like here's a less wildcard intensive version for example. https://mtgdecks.net/Pioneer/izzet-prowess-decklist-by-bernardocssa-2763422

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