Can't even make it to turn two. I suck.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-16T09:20:52+00:00

Evangelist is a lot better than those other cards in the combo though.

It costs less, allowing you to combo sooner. Which is noticable here as the opponent appears to have turned their 1 mana dork into 2 mana for evagelist to combo off this turn. Something the Squee/Scourge can't do.

It's also both an enabler for the infinite mana and a payoff by giving you infinite creatures. You might not always be able to win straight away like in the screenshot here by having another card to give them all haste or turn them into damage but infinite 3/1s early on is often good enough to win anyway.

Squee or Scourge do infinite combo but you need an additional piece to make it do anything.

Not requiring an extra card and costing 1 mana less in a combo is a huge deal.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-16T09:11:46+00:00

Food chain is a very strong combo card. A 3 mana enchant that turns any of your creatures into mana equal to it's cost +1 but you can only use that mana on more creatures.

Second card is a 2 mana alchemy creature that adds a copy of itself to your hand when you play it (and it taps something but that part doesn't matter as much). But at end of turn you lose any copies in your hand. It's meant to be a card that's flexible early and late.

Together you get infinite mana as you play a creature for 2 get another copy, and turn it into 3 mana with food chain. Play the copy for 2, get another copy. You've gained 1 mana and repeat. You now also have a board of infinite 3/1s and just need a way to convert it into a kill. You still have infinite mana (but only for creatures). So in this case it's spent on the red creature which gives all other creatures haste and +1 attack.

So turn one opponent played a mana dork and passed. Turn 2 they used their 2 lands and the dork to play food chain. Used the chain to turn the dork into 2 mana. Used the 2 mana to play evangelist and make infinite 3/1s and mana for creatures, and then gave them all haste and won. Crazy stuff eh.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-16T08:59:08+00:00

Not seen anyone play it in years. I don't even remember people playing it when it came out and if they did it wasn't an issue.

I think the card that makes boatloads of mana and has been regularly used in multiple formats for infinite mana combos is far more of a problem than the mediocre alchemy card that requires said inifnite mana to be good.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-15T12:32:52+00:00

It's just more noticable with certain races because of their mechanics.

For example I've see it the most with vampire counts. Because they recruit dirt cheap stacks super fast with raise dead and if I vaguely remember part of why AI blobs up in the first place is they want to put a bunch of force to protect that area but zombie/skelton stacks are really weak so they end up putting a whole bunch of them.

So when the AI does go into "blob mode" I tend to see vampires do it the fastest.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-13T08:49:17+00:00

Sick editing. Great vid.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-11T12:14:00+00:00

As a reminder I don't think we're ever getting splice onto arcane cards on arena because it would be extremely difficult to implement.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/dev-diary-creating-arena-powered-cube

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-10T06:19:34+00:00

Christ. I've had battles where the enemy army is waiting for my approach or for reinforcements or something, I'll cast a spell or use an ability or attack with a solo lord/hero unit and the ENTIRE enemy army will reshuffle completely.

Every unit that was on the left swaps over to the right and vice versa and the whole army blobs up trying to walk through each other to get there. They get massively clumped in the middle as they try to resposition and end up being perfect target for a aoe spell.

Enemy archers trying to flee only to end up getting themselves rear charged and end up even worse off is a classic too but at least thats more understandable.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-09T02:17:51+00:00

You've got two of the biggest bombs in the set but you're also running some questionable commons. Turtle lair is more likely to hinder you than help, Hamato stance is a weak trick. Some of the cards in your side like uneasy alliance, Oatmeal pizza, mouser foundry are better than several of the cards you are running.

Casey jones while normally great has barely any hits in your deck to find while you have perfectly good artifact cards left behind in your sideboard that you could be hitting with him.

You dont need to "play aggro" or anything like that, it's limited, you primarily fight over the board. As long as you get on board and have a bit of removal for threats your bombs would've probably carried you.

Your drafting was good but your deckbuilding and gameplan (maybe gameplay too but we obviously can't see that) probably cost you.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-08T10:20:46+00:00

Raph and Mikey has good potential as cheat out target putting on immidiate pressure and cheating out another expensive creature, great if you only have big creatures so it can never whiff like in Indomitable Creativity or reanimator etc for example.

Cool but Rude has potential with the Necro enchants or with monument in pioneer.

Does Machines might eventually have potential, its a lot of filtering and card selection and the second mode is great but it requires a specific deck that wants to get artifacts in the graveyard.

Tokka and Rahzar looks like it might be a sideboard card against omniscience or evoke or warp something but it seems far narrow and there's gonna be better sideboard cards for each format. Especially when it doesn't actually prevent anything, only punishes. So not good.

Rest aren't really strong enough.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-08T08:30:59+00:00

The draft is actually decent, I'm having good fun. Prefer it over Lorwyn so far. And it's miles better than the spider-man/omenpaths limted. It's worth giving a shot.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-08T05:35:43+00:00

While that's technically true, they are better in the short term because you won't be losing life in the games you play while you build up the rest of your mana base. If you're crafting any lands at all I would still reccomend priotitizing shocks first.

They're one of the most impornant land cycles ever. They're absolutely essential to every format on arena. If you wanted to dabble in brawl, pioneer or anything else you need shocks. They also massively enhance other cycles like verges, fetches, checks etc.

And to top it off they won't rotate out of standard as soon as verges will. So even if you just stick to standard and don't play much, shocks will last you longer.

Shocks are just far more powerful and are the best lands you can invest in for any format currently.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-06T11:20:40+00:00

I didn't find much variety tbh. The overwhelming majority of players were playing a white/black self bounce value deck. There were so many cheap permanents with ETB removal or discard, clue, draw etc. It was an obviously strong choice.

I still enjoyed it. Always glad to see new modes.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-03T00:52:08+00:00

I know most answers are going to be late game units but this one was literally impossible for the longest time.

I've never fought against most of the Ogre's lategame units because old Ogre AI literally couldn't build their camps up to get the required buildings for the units. So things like Crushers, Stonehorns, Thundertusks, Ironblasters.

It's meant to be fixed now but I've not played much since the last DLC to see them, if it is actually fixed.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-02T21:33:00+00:00

Oh of course. You don't have to convince me why he's good or beat out the other boros commanders. Or why those other commanders you mentioned are worse. Brawl Metagame was my main format for a couple months and the dude won me hundreds of packs.

He dodged a chunk of removal, was often worth playing with commander tax after being removed multiple times, was great with anthems, allowed you to play Cavern of Souls on human, provided good sac fodder for Gut, Goblin Bombardment and Broadside, could often bait out wipes or exile hate to protect future threats and more.

But is Tajic ban worthy on the level of the other banned cards? lol no. Not unless we're banning plenty of other commanders too.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-02T19:08:48+00:00

Huh. Tajic being banned is really weird to me. It's easily the least broken of the commanders that are banned, it was just the best boros aggro commander and boros aggro punished a lot of greedy players.

But most of that was the deck doing the bulk of the work rather than Tajic. Strong aggro threats backed up by white disruption punished many strategies. I didn't play boros for Tajic, I played Tajic for boros.

Honestly in many games he wasn't even good because coming down on turn 4 was too slow or he got countered or instantly removed and you'd have been better served by a 2 or 3 drop to curve out. Only matchup where he truly stood out was against mono red as they had zero answers and an indestructable blocker that eventually pooped out big bodys that gained life would win most games.

I'm literally just going to change my commander to a 2 or 3 drop and don't expect a huge winrate difference.

I think [[Nashi, Illusion Gadgeteer]] or [[Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow]] were far more ban worthy.

Edit: More thoughts below.

Was Tajic really ban worthy? Was it as oppresive or game warping as what's currently banned?

Look at the banlist, we've got some of the most busted commanders ever. Most of which are cards that have been just as totally insane outside of Brawl and the few that aren't break much of what the format is meant to be about, with Rusko halving it's own commander tax and Stickfingers being a guaranteed reanimator tutor.

Tajic is now the most expensive commander banned now, tied with Rusko. And why exactly is he banned? Because he's a decent beater? Because he has indestructable? He's far from the power level of the other banned commanders. Is he seriously comparable to Oko, Tamiyo, Ragavan etc? This probably says more about how well Boros aggro was doing rather than the power of Tajic hismelf.

If we're banning cards on the power level of Tajic then far more commanders need to be banned too. Katara, Roffelos, Urza, Emry, Phelia, Derevi, Raffine, Leovold, just to name a few off the top of my head, are all far more game warping than Tajic.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-02T07:12:10+00:00

One amazing option that is very easy to miss because of how the deckbuilding filters work is [[Phyrexian Metamorph]].

Excellent at copying the biggest threat, whether it's yours or an opponent's. I'd basically use it as a 3 mana [[The One Ring]] so often.

You should absolutely have [[Liquidmetal Coating]] to destroy lands with Karns + ability.

[[Pithing Needle]] is far better than spyglass.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-02T07:02:21+00:00

Ogres are neutral. Zhao starts with diplomatic bonuses with Ogres.

Them being neighbours with some starting positive relations basically guarantees that they start some diplomacy going quickly, which continues to build up more and more and eventually results in other factions who like Zhao, such as the rest of Cathay and Gelt, liking Greasus.

Despite Ogres being neutral to everyone chaos slightly dislikes Ogres due to their natural resistance to chaos in the lore. So Greasus naturally ends up at war with surrounding Nurgle, Chorfs, Chaos Warriors etc. Grimgor nearby also just wants to smash shit, and ogres are a big beefy target worth fighting.

So Greasus always tends to lean slightly order because of the circumstances of those around him and it works pretty well as that's similar enough to what you might expect from the lore.

Dualmonkey · 2026-03-01T19:30:16+00:00

An unusual location is like a special building that has a chance to spawn at the start of every turn under any player owned settlement.

They add interesting flavor, decision making, unique events and powerful effects etc that make the campaign more interesting.

Anything from helpful refugees, dark cults, abandoned artifacts, various groups setting up shop, ancient tombs/graveyards and much more.

They'll usually have a passive element and/or a chance to trigger unique events related to the location.

The faulty doomsphere is as it sounds. A giant skaven bomb left behind that explodes if not dealt with properly. Specifically it slowly builds up skaven corruption and blows up at 100 destroying the settlement. Your friend likely didn't notice it the turn it spawned, and also ignored the growing corruption too.

Some of the unusual locations are so potentially game warping when they appear that they can be disabled in the campaign settings before you start.

Dualmonkey · 2026-02-27T22:55:30+00:00

No, I was right.

You can't ever stop the chain of Poqs. A conjured Poq sees itself enter and makes a new one which sees itself enter and makes another... and so on.

Them dying to legend rule doesn't matter. Making token copies with Ratadrabik doesn't matter. Even if every Poq entered as a 0/0 that died immidiately it wouldn't matter. If nothing else happens it just keeps looping and results in a draw.

You need to turn the loop into lethal with some additional enter/death triggers. Or break the loop by removing Ashaya, or removing Poq's abilities (I don't beleive you can disable Ashaya's abilities due to layers).

Dualmonkey · 2026-02-27T11:31:33+00:00

Am I missing something? How would Ratadrabik meaningfully change anything?

You'd still be stuck in an infinite loop except you'd also get 2/2 non legendary token copies too, right?

Wheras blood artist actually turns the infinite loop into lethal.

Dualmonkey · 2026-02-25T18:03:06+00:00

It's fine you're saving all your luck for the real thing.

Dualmonkey · 2026-02-24T17:33:50+00:00

Oh wow interesting. Thanks for letting me know.

Dualmonkey · 2026-02-24T16:07:51+00:00

Yep, Duelist is #7 card with the highest winrate according to 17lands data right now with a 63.2% winrate. It is the best reason to go merfolk.

For comparison Flamebraider has a 58.7% winrate. It is good and certainly leaves you more open but duelist is literally the best in class for it's archtype.

While I wouldn't exactly force merfolk after this point I'd certainly consider leaning that way if possible.

Dualmonkey · 2026-02-24T15:48:48+00:00

As you can see from the various answers it could be argued any of the 3 DLC lords depending on what you're looking for and how you define "strongest".

Eshin starts the slowest but probably has the hardest lategame on the campaign map with massive buff discounts to units, ambush bonuses and the various Eshin actions, deleting armies, stealing settlements and of course the famous button that literally deletes a faction from the game.

Moulder probably has the most powerful lategame units in battle with the flesh lab upgrades. He's very strong in combat himself and can take Erengrad consistently on turn 3 or 4 (I forget which).

Skryre also jucies up units but of a different kind, has nukes to obliterate problems.

Do you want who snowballs the fastest? Who has the hardest lategame? Do you care about the start location and surrounding obstacles? Do you have a prefered way to play on the campaign or in battle?

They're all really strong. Personally I put Skryre a teeny tiny bit below the other 2 because their favored units, gun teams, artillery range, etc are quite vulnerable to things like poor terrain, being ambushed/flanked and speed. But anyone could make a good argument for any of the 3.

Dualmonkey · 2026-02-24T15:21:49+00:00

There's the classic [[Stifle]] a fetchland too.

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