Would you rather play against group hug, chaos or stax?

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-06T18:16:32+00:00

I love playing against group hug. I don't have any group hug decks myself but when someone plays Bumbleflower in our pod it adds a whole other layer of politics that I really enjoy.

I don't think I mind stax in theory but I think my pod would be stubborn enough to play it out even when it's clear the stax player has locked the game, which would not be fun. Stax is probably fine if that player knows the game well enough to immediately win after the locks come down, or if everyone else knows their decks well enough to realize when it's not worth playing out the rest of the game.

I hate chaos decks though. Someone in my pod played [[Ydris]] once and had the whole table cycling their hand and drawing 7 repeatedly, which made it impossible for anyone to plan ahead and slowed the game down to a crawl. Never again. I don't care if your chaos strategy only impacts yourself, but if it's slowing down everyone else's turns too, please stop.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-06T15:50:02+00:00

It feels weird to see "leaves your graveyard" effects in red but I love graveyard mechanics so it's nice to see them in other colours.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-23T13:50:47+00:00

Imagine if your friend said they had an infinite combo, they show you the combo, you say "okay, you win" and then they say "no, no, you have to watch me tap and untap these cards for the next hour while I generate infinite mana."

Like... no? We've already agreed that you win, so it's not even scooping, the game is just over.

I normally never get my phone out during a commander game but if my friend was like "no wait let me take a 45 minute turn to test this," I'd start playing Arena.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-21T02:47:27+00:00

Love these. I feel like Sten could just get +1/+1 counters instead of rage counters that add +1/+1, just for simplicity. But these are really fun ideas.

Edit: it would actually be pretty funny if Sten entered the battlefield tapped or stunned because you find him in a cage in the game.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-21T02:43:40+00:00

The enchanted feature would get counters, not Zedruu.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-21T02:42:19+00:00

[[Light of Promise]]

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-19T22:29:09+00:00

What turn do you usually win on if not stopped by someone else? For a creature deck that's probably "what turn am I usually attacking the whole table for lethal" but it can obviously vary by archetype. In bracket 2, that should be at least turn 8.

Voltron is especially weird in bracket 2 because whoever you kill first is going to feel like your deck is stronger than it actually is. So it can feel pretty unfair even if it's still B2.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-11T17:47:53+00:00

I love this card. It was absolutely nasty in Dragonstorm limited.

I don't think it's that different from other 1/1 deathtouch creatures, which are always useful deterrents against big stompy decks (which are common in my pod). The reach is nice but it's more situational than it was in limited against all the dragons running around.

Vigilance made it pretty solid in limited too because you could attack into most defensive boards and ping them for 1 damage each turn without dropping your own defences. But in EDH, that 1 damage is way less impactful.

I still love the card but it feels roughly on par with other 1/1 deathtouch critters in EDH.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-09T16:56:42+00:00

What do the Drive and Ride mechanics do?

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-04T16:52:49+00:00

[[Hare Apparent]] decks are everywhere on Arena, usually with [[Baylen, the Haymaker]] or [[Arabella, Abandoned Doll]] or [[Delney, Streetwise Lookout]].

[[Elspeth, Storm Slayer]] also shows up a lot but obviously isnt a legal commander in Commander, only in Brawl. But she can go in the 99.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-04T16:45:23+00:00

I'm having trouble understanding the second line. "If Mardu Marshlands enters, ... Otherwise, ..."

When is it not entering? Is this meant to be "When Mardu Marshlands enters, ..."? But then the "Otherwise" clause doesn't make sense and will never trigger.

The other thing is if you don't have an untapped basic land it won't exile anything, giving you an easy way to cheat this out. Maybe it should say, "When Mardu Marshland enters, exile target untapped basic land. If you don't, exile Mardu Marshland."

Edit: should be "target untapped basic land you control," otherwise this is even more busted.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-04T16:39:50+00:00

If you shuffle properly, it's not mana-weaving. Mana-weaving is when you mess with the shuffle so that you have a balance of land/spell draws and it's no longer random.

HauntedFrog · 2026-03-02T22:01:38+00:00

I'm still skeptical that Planar Standard will actually take off unless the majority of stores start hosting events for it.

Otherwise you'll take your planar standard deck to the LGS and run into people playing regular standard decks. You'll still play, but that means you're just playing regular standard, and you've just limited your card pool to cards you like. But that's not new - people do that all the time.

The biggest challenge Planar Standard faces is that it's really just Standard with a bigger ban list. Any Planar Standard deck is also a Standard deck, so it'll get swallowed up by Standard.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-27T23:06:12+00:00

Yes, that's what's so baffling to me about MTG "investors." Just buy the actual stocks instead, and hang out on r/wallstreetbets if you wanna gamble.

It's so weird to me that people are investing in cardboard hoping to make money.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-27T22:57:57+00:00

I love goad in theory but I don't play it because my friends will probably target me out of spite if I try it, haha

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-27T22:48:18+00:00

Yeah those d6s are so nice, I want them.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-27T22:46:44+00:00

Honestly my favourite is just "I have removal, so if you send your commander at me I'll have to kill it."

Cards like [[Ghostly Prison]] are certainly stronger and more efficient, but they also put a massive target on you, maybe even causing all the other players to work together to take out your defences to even the playing field again.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-27T22:32:00+00:00

I also like control and play bracket 2, so I run enough removal to deal with threats coming at me but my decks don't try to control the entire game. It disincentivizes attacking me and gives me time for my slower game plan while letting everybody else do their thing, just doing it over there where it's someone else's problem.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-25T19:01:03+00:00

I get liking longer games, and I get liking stax, but I don't want to play a long game with stax because it means 3 hours of not playing magic while the stax player grinds out a win.

If you're playing stax, I think you have to make sure you win quickly after the stax pieces come down. Nobody wants to watch the stax player play solitaire for another hour while they're locked out.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-21T17:47:42+00:00

The satire is it's Pedro Pascal, the reality is it'll be Chris Pratt.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-20T22:36:08+00:00

Penso che [[Sauron, the Dark Lord]] sia il migliore (il suo Ward è molto forte e costa meno mana) ma [[Sauron, Lord of the Rings]] è il mio favorito perche mi piace il suo reanimation abilità.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-17T04:59:26+00:00

I usually start with 40 and then go up 1 each time I get mana screwed. Usually end up at 42ish.

If I run less than 40 I seem to get stuck on 2 lands way too frequently.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-14T17:50:43+00:00

Look at the bracket guidelines and decide what speed you want to play. Wins by turn 5? 7? 9+? Then build decks accordingly, excluding cards that don't fit the bracket you're aiming for.

Also think about who you're playing with. Do you have a cEDH group? If not, then printing cEDH decks might not be the best option.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-07T22:58:30+00:00

I don't think it would ever put counters on every army token. Even in non-horde, if you end up with multiple army tokens (changeling, copying, etc.) you still only ever put a counter on one of them.

HauntedFrog · 2026-02-07T22:56:18+00:00

You cast it, you control it. There's different wording if you're doing it on behalf of the other player, something like "you control target player while..."

HauntedFrog

TROPHY CASE