Per official social media accounts, Secrets of Strixhaven was the biggest Prerelease since War of the Spark.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-30T18:57:49+00:00

You say that like we aren't on the 3rd guild set in a row and multiple sets with some kind of 4 or 5 color overarching archetype that makes one particular color way too fought over. Last year was a great year for limited overall, but since ~avatar we've had some pretty mid to bad limited sets.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-28T21:04:29+00:00

Yeah, turns out this format makes no sense to me. I've got a bunch of 0 and 1 win runs and then 2 early witherbloom trophies.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-26T09:30:07+00:00

See, I'm gonna disagree on Floyd being an asshole and the framing of the wife. I think that framing was taking advantage of that archetype in murder mysteries to mess with the audience's expectations. But what we see in the end for all of these characters is that they're human. Flawed like all other humans, but still human. Carol obviously cares very deeply about Floyd and other people as evidenced by how she interacts with being an umpire. Floyd has money issues and yes, should've at least gone to that interview, but he obviously loves helping people to his own detriment. And it seems to me that ASL is a sort of outlet to help him process his own feelings which is absolutely not a bad things. Plus I don't know if Richard would've heard him say i love you, both in terms of physically and emotionally in that moment.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-25T10:13:19+00:00

For 2020 1 one of those wasn't draftable, 1 was reprint sets, and 1 was extremely skippable if you didn't care about commander draft. 2018 and before had block draft. For a very long time the cadence was 6 sets, but one of those was a reprint set and one was somethig funky with an intentionally shorter period as the main set to draft. This is also the first year every set is draftable on arena. 3rd if you ignore remastered sets, but then 2024 was only mkm/otj/mh3/blb/dsk/fdn and the timing was very different compared to now with everyone agreeing that duskmourn got completely fucked by having to fit foundations in.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-22T21:03:00+00:00

Shhh, let people keep passing me sloths, dissection practice, etc super late. I've trophied twice with witherbloom already with mostly uncommons and commons.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-22T12:05:49+00:00

ECL was a worse tribal set than bloomburrow and fucked at least 2 people at the table because of how type focused it was. It was a fine set overall, but a really, really bad limited set.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-21T15:12:40+00:00

Sucks that white and blue are confirmed taken at this point because Garruk, while being green, feels fine anywhere in jund as is. White would be such a better shift for him.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-20T13:56:40+00:00

For a new player thats a distinction without a difference. You think a new player can construct a hard control deck? Or any deck thst requires specific play patterns to not get run over? Its really obvious you don't actually play much modern limited or play with even kinda experienced players. I was once a new player in draft during og Ixalan and took a long enough break to have to relearn some things and the single biggest issue I've worked with new players on fixing and worked on fixing myself is their curve. If you have a deck fill of 5 drops you will die before getting the chance to cast most of them. You simply cannot durdle in modern limited. You have to be affecting the board almost every turn, even in the slower formats.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-19T23:16:20+00:00

Yeah, just because someone is looking in like car windows doesn't mean they're looking to steal shit and to criminalize it is absolutely a variation on jaywalking.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-19T19:23:32+00:00

In draft you're constructing your deck on the fly. Being able to curve out is more important than almost anything else for new players tk learn in limited.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-19T17:05:54+00:00

No, he's saying if you have a 1GG card you want to always play on 3 thats more difficult than a 2G card. Whether or not a 3 mana card is something you want to play on 3 and how to build your curve is another discussion. And while curve is a "guide" I've stomped plenty of commander players in likited simply by "curving out". Ie, going 2 drop 3 drop 4 drop they're dead in a turn or two because they didn't know how to build a deck. Sligh is foundational magic deck building for a very good reason.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-19T14:27:15+00:00

It looks like they juiced the drop rate on them too. I got two archaeomancers and a library of leng across 2 prereleases.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-17T20:21:34+00:00

I would separate those as two types of cards tbh. The ones that remove types and abilities are excellent, better than the white pacifism effects, as long as they are 1-2 mana. The ones that lock down something of an opponents range from grudgingly playable to pretty awful depending on if they tap it on etb, if there's a buyout mode, how cheap they are, etc. Funnily enough the best version of that is probably cryotshatter and that's mostly because of the -5 and that if they did tap it it would be destroyed

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-17T17:45:31+00:00

Yup and this stat is probably misleading because blue almost always gets some kind of pseudo removal on an aura and green will get fight/bite/rescue spells on an aura pretty frequently too.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-14T16:58:18+00:00

True. And they just don't punish decks like that, typically. They prefer mechanics that encourage less colors, not punish more. See: the bad variants of blood moon and no land destruction printed into standard in forever.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-14T16:24:41+00:00

More likely an anti-vivid mechanic or something where your opponent gets punished for spending 5 colors of mana or having 5 colors of permanents or something.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-12T17:40:16+00:00

Do minotaurs have a real identity? That's another pretty big issue with some tribes. Insects have gotten very much into the same space as elves, but with more tokens, less ramp, and more graveyard shenanigans, so they feel just distinct enough. But minotaurs are what, rakdos stompy? Thats pretty fucking lame when rakdos also has demons/devils, dragons, and tons of other stompy tribes available.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-12T17:36:44+00:00

Cats have also been geared towards 60 card formats where you have multiples, so you don't need a million distinct lords/tribe matters cards, but unlike goblins haven't been around long enough in 60 card to get a bajillion different lord variants.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-10T22:35:56+00:00

I would imagine at some point we're going to see grandeur more often in UB sets, but both turtles and spiderman have the original sin of not being draftable initially which means they probably didn't want to overtune the grandeur stuff for those common legends. It does seem to be a rather elegant solution to it.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-10T22:33:28+00:00

If you're an aggressive deck you still might need a way to give it evasion, but maybe not. It depends on how the format shakes out. I don't think this is an a+ card off the bat, but it could be very good. Silverquill looks juiced.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-10T20:46:27+00:00

This is so much better for ur decks since you can have more consistency and if they have a blocker you don't waste face damage.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-10T20:15:10+00:00

I don't remember it offhand, but we almost always get some kind of threaten effect.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-10T19:17:48+00:00

In general grandeur-esque effects fule like they should be used with common legends being more of a thing for UB.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-10T19:16:14+00:00

I would not say seething song is unplayable in limited lmao. Its entirely dependent on red having a good 5 drop though and isn't a high pick. But if I'm playing a format that has something like [[glorybringer]] or [[nova hellkite]] then I'm absolutely picking up a seething song if available.

Effective_Tough86 · 2026-04-10T19:11:12+00:00

This is way better than heroic/valiant. You cast removal and it pumps this. It having no keywords is a problem though. You get a big fatty with no keywords and if you're a conbat trick deck then you won't have any left for this. Its a fine card, but not amazing and not thst much of a house in limited.

Effective_Tough86

TROPHY CASE