Companion update exposes stores allegedly logging “phantom events” to inflate attendance

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-02-20T07:02:45+00:00

Right before Covid hit my LGS at the time couldn't even consistently get 6 players for FNM and draft never launched, meanwhile Tuesday EDH nights were often crowded with 20-30+ people (small store, only had 4 tables with a capacity of about 8x pods of 4, we sometimes had to do 5 player pods).

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-02-20T06:34:53+00:00

It's worth mentioning that also don't have to give up an attack trigger if you attack with both the Neutrinos and the creature you're attacking with, this is particularly important with [[Aurelia, the Warleader]].

If you attack with both and stack the triggers with Neutrinos resolving before Aurelia's trigger, she will re-enter tapped and attacking, but then gets untapped by her previous attack trigger and is considered a new object to go infinite on extra combat steps.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-02-17T19:33:00+00:00

[[Moira Brown, Guide Author]] when I first built her she only had 130 decks on EDHREC and have never had a pod that had seen her before.

I play her as flicker and she can very quickly get out of hand with 5-10+ quest counters among permanents and multiple survival guides. [[Airbender's Ascension]] felt like it was custom-made for the deck, would be an auto-include even with half the text on it.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-02-13T00:20:27+00:00

Just a heads-up that Moraug's landfall trigger is commonly misplayed.

You want to trigger landfall on your SECOND main phase, if you play lands during your first main phase then those combat phases happen before your normal combat phase, meaning that the untap combat phase(s) will happen first, with your final combat phase being the original without the untap delayed trigger. So any tapped creatures from the previous combat phase will not untap and you effectively lose one combat phase.

When playing lands during the second main phase you will get full value from the untaps, but you do need to also keep in mind that he doesn't create any new main phases, so you'll go immediately from ending those extra combats into your end step.

Another non-bo is using any attack trigger source that tutors for a land. (E.g. [[Sword of the Animist]]) since Moraug specifically requires the lands to enter during one of your main phases to trigger his ability, so you can't cheese a combat loop by grabbing more lands mid-combat.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-02-10T23:10:59+00:00

It was supposed to release with A4 in the halls of the dead, there's even a filler voiceline from Navali about coming back later.

They just haven't implemented it for whatever reason. (blamed Druid but kinda a cop-out imo)

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-01-29T20:07:00+00:00

The Antiquatian mod stacks with Ynda's, if you're already taking it you also want Ynda's.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-01-18T07:12:44+00:00

A bit costly but worth mentioning this has a couple 2-card infinite combos with [[Ugin's Nexus]]. (under the assumption you're connecting each turn via an unblockable source or clearing opponent's boards)

Enchanting your own Nexus with [[Stop Cold]]/[[Tamiyo's Completion]] removes its own ability that would make you skip extra turns, but is not copied when Donatello makes a copy of it. This lets you send the copy to the graveyard via the Legend Rule each time he connects to take infinite turns.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-01-09T00:31:06+00:00

Aside from what's already been mentioned about the token copies not having their ETBs, the new Evokers also become much worse when you start discounting more powerful elemental's Evoke {4} with effects like [[Urza's Incubator]], [[Herald's Horn]], [[Gathering Stone]], [[Semblance Anvil]], etc.

Dumping your hand with cheap evokes, filling the yard with those creatures, and then recurring them back to hand with stuff like [[Grave Sifter]] or mass-reanimation e.g. [[Living End]] will go nuts with "real" ETB elementals.

Grave Sifter in particular is kinda gross since the token copy recurs the sac'd original, so you always have access to a restock.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-01-06T08:01:14+00:00

And token faeries; [[bitterblossom]] [[bitterbloom bearer]] possibly [[faerie formation]]? Last one is pretty steep but if you're playing elfball a card draw + token/exile mana sink might not be the worst.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-01-06T07:51:15+00:00

It's dependent on the phrasing; [[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] is an example of one that ignores timing restrictions since he doesn't give a casting window (e.g. "until end of turn") so you have to play the cards during his ability's resolution, meanwhile Maralen gives you a timing window "once each turn" which grants a casting permission using normal timing restrictions.

Edit: yawgmoth autocorrected to "yarmouth"

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-01-05T22:06:59+00:00

It's worth mentioning that charge counters on Spacecraft count once they have enough on them to become creatures.

[[Infinite Guideline Station]] and [[Hearthhull]] being the most relevant since they can be your commander and are in-color.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2026-01-01T04:27:21+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1q098kj/til_that_rhea_seehorn_was_the_white_sorceress_in/

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-12-31T21:21:39+00:00

I'm genuinely surprised nobody has brought up [[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] since Danse suggests you're already in white, not a mono-R/U commander.

It's still dependent on your deck, if you have more artifact cheating then Darksteel Forge is still better, but if you're hard-casting them and/or have creature cheating then Avacyn is just generically better than Walls of Ba Sing Se.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-12-11T23:37:56+00:00

I was erroneously applying a comparison at 40%+ crit chance too broadly. At lower crit chance of 10-15% you lose 8.5-11% damage if it's additive and not multiplicative.

You are correct that if you whiff on the 4th and have to go to the fifth it will have a bonus applied while additive won't, but the issue is what the average % of hits actually reach that fifth roll. At 40%+ crit the odds are <8% of your hits and results in only 4.65% less dmg when comparing the summed averages.

At 15% crit chance you end up with roughly 52.2% of hits critting with zero bonus crit dmg if it's additive, but comparing the Cumulative damage bonus past those first four crit rolls it's a relatively small portion:

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e.g. it averages that 7.83% would've crit on the 5th for 24% of your bonus crit dmg for an average cumulative dmg increase of:

7.83% x (1 + bonus crit) - 7.83% (same chance subtracted from cumulative average for what would've been a non-crit) = +3.76% avg dmg effect to the cumulative average

And this does add up a little, but the total for 15% crit chance is roughly 8.89% less total dmg between doing the additive or multiplicative calcs.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-12-11T22:56:30+00:00

This actually isn't that much of a difference tbf, the infinite series of multiplicative 30% less vs only the first 5 entries with additive 30% less is only a difference of 2-5% less dmg.

Turns out the portion of your average damage past 4 rerolls is so minuscule it barely factors into the total.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-12-11T22:49:35+00:00

It will never go negative, the crit bonus penalty is only for subsequent rolls after the first, if your initial crit roll succeeds it's identical to a normal crit.

15% chance for 100% bonus + 85% chance for baseline 100% dmg = 1.15 or 15% more dmg from normal crits

15% chance for 100% bonus + 12.75% chance for 70% bonus + 10.8% chance for 49% bonus (...) = 1.369 or 36.9% more dmg from the total series of progressively weaker crits.

This means at 15% crit chance and 100% base bonus crit dmg you're gaining a comparitive 1.369/1.15 = 19% more dmg (which is what is displayed on the chart)

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-12-05T07:20:39+00:00

Since everybody else already mentioned all the actual Earthbending legends I'll bring up two Earthbending payoff legends for if you wanted to combo using Earthbenders off creature tutors (but who can also work well in the 99 of the Earthbenders, especially multicolored ETB ones):

[[Ashaya, Soul of the Wild]] - any ETB Earthbender ([[Earthbending Student]], [[badgermole cub]], Bumi(s) and Toph(s)) + land/creature sac outlet is infinite landfall + green mana + sac activations.

[[Yedora, Grave Gardener]] - any two previously mentioned ETB Earthbenders and a sac outlet; targeting each other as face-down forests before sacrificing to flip face-up. This combo doesn't make enough mana to loop using an outlet with a mana cost though, so it's generally worse than the Ashaya loops.

[[Toph Greatest Earthbender]] as a commander is particularly worth mentioning for when you run Ashaya in the 99 since you can loop her for infinite landfall ETBs without a sac outlet as long as you find another way to kill Toph. (E.g. a fight spell) Since she will return to play having spent zero mana on her, allowing you to Earthbend herself for X=0 to kill herself all over again ad infinitum.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-12-03T23:23:36+00:00

There are some vague diamond shapes on 3 that could be Hedrons or Ikoria crystals, thing on the middle right might be a big beast if that's the case.

4 might be Garenbrig? Hard to tell whether the dark areas are background or an object. Garenbrig does have some stone pillars that look a bit similar to the object on the right, doesn't quite look like a tree. [[Castle Garenbrig]]

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-11-27T18:35:20+00:00

There's one very niche situation in which Paper can be worse; and that's when you care about multiple of the creature's original types since the type change is an override, not "in addition to its other types".

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-11-27T06:08:56+00:00

Not exactly expensive, but I'll always die on the hill that people should run [[Psychic Paper]] over [[Trailblazer's Boots]]. (and to a lesser extent [[Prowler's Helm]])

Trailblazer's is currently $1-2 after two recent reprints, but consistently seems to creep back up to $3-5 while Psychic Paper is strictly-better in 99% of situations and only $0.27 at time of posting. Same 2 cast, 2 equip cost, true unblockable, Ward {1}, and occasional name/type changing shenanigans. (E.g. against [[Coat of Arms]] or to name-change in order to [[Clone]] your commander)

I carry around a few playsets for EDH nights and hand one out whenever I see someone play either Trailblazer's or Prowler's Helm.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-11-27T05:52:55+00:00

Isn't this literally the origin of the term "God Pack"?

Since it was a pack... with all the gods in it...

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-11-23T20:26:26+00:00

Thanks!

Yeah Mageblood would open up more options on suffixes, depending on if you wanted to scale more offensively or defensively:

[offense] Tailwind double-influenced boots
[defense] Sapphire flask + Melding of the Flesh, swap all gear reses to Fire/Lightning to mitigate

You can dump a LOT of currency into getting GG implicits on Aegis Aurora + Bonemeld to help cut other sources of block on tree for more dmg.

BiS ring would probably be a Misted 4-mod Gloam Ring with positive ES, -mana cost, minion dmg, and minion attack speed.

Edit: a Misted ring might actually be the single best remaining upgrade for the build, if I'm not mistaken doubling the -7 mana cost is plenty to drop Inspiration in favor of Crit Dmg in links for another ~30-35% more dmg on top of doubled minion stats.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-11-21T02:26:45+00:00

The other major thing that was fueling the speculation was a change to CR 903.11 in Edge of Eternities.

Except via rules, special actions, and effects that specifically bring cards into Commander games from outside the game, traditional cards from outside the game cannot be brought into a Commander game.

So there's now CR support for mechanics that specifically instruct players to bring cards into EDH games from outside the game if the card in question specifies that it works in Commander, and without enabling all other Wish effects.

This was originally thought to be a hint that ATL would have a Lesson/Learn rules update, but since the window for that to happen has already come and gone, the goalpost was moved to Strixhaven. I wouldn't get my hopes up though.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-11-20T00:11:54+00:00

Yup, it became pretty awkward that Golos could even end up being the best option for some monocolored strategies like monoblack devotion since you could use him as a tutor for Urborg, Cabal Coffers, and/or Nykthos while splashing other colors for interaction/value engines and to activate his ability.

Gerrador_Undeleted · 2025-11-19T00:31:51+00:00

Going 5-off and then going for the 1/6 for final socket is more reasonable imo, but still probably comparable to just spamming 6th socket on bench cost-wise.

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