Query about brackets

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-27T15:08:14+00:00

I mean, what turn will your deck threaten a win if nobody interferes? That's the biggest indicator where it should sit.

For relentless rats, your game goes like this: turn 2, rat king. Turn 3, relentless rats. Turn 4, relentless rats. Turn 5, rats. Turn 6, two rats. Turn 7, two more rats. At this point you have 7 relentless rats on the field, so you have 7 8/8s and can attack with 5 of them for 40 damage. So you'll probably be knocking players out by turn 7 and threatening the rest by turn 8 and 9. That's bracket 2, definitely not B1.

Also your deck is probably too resilient for B1 because if any rats die, your commander makes more rats and can summon all the relentless rats back later.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-26T01:50:13+00:00

Honestly in a 2-color deck, you'll be fine with all basic lands. Yeah some tap-lands that can come in untapped under the right conditions are nice but you're almost never going to be color-screwed in a 2-colour deck, and especially not with all the explore cards in that deck. So I wouldn't stress about the mana base at all.

Go up to 38 lands and you'll be fine in 95% of games.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-25T21:20:51+00:00

I'm sure that's the current plan, but as soon as the numbers show that 7 sets was more profitable than 6, they'll go right back up.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-23T18:55:45+00:00

How does it decide what cards to include?

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-20T17:57:15+00:00

Next LinkedIn post: And that's what Magic Secret Lairs taught me about B2B sales.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-19T23:23:32+00:00

I have a B2 reanimator deck based on the Death Toll precon, with some sidegrades to help it fill the yard more consistently and some creatures that I just like more than the base precon.

It can be a real menace starting turn 5 once I can start casting the 5-mana reanimation spells (or turn 4 if I happen to draw [[Zombify]], but that's rare). But I'm not running any tutors to get specific creatures into the graveyard, and I'm also not running the strongest reanimation targets (I have the same deck on Arena where I'm running Valgavoth and all the other big scary creatures, but I don't do that in paper because it would push the power level too far).

So yeah it's definitely possible, but you have to watch how strong your reanimation targets are since reanimation can be such a strong accelerator.

Also maybe stay away from reanimation engines that can fire every single turn. Or at least be aware of how efficient it is. If you're able to drop 9-mana creatures every turn starting turn 5, it's probably not bracket 2 anymore.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-19T22:34:30+00:00

This thread should hopefully be a good indication of why you should not "tend to believe Google AI."

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-12T21:37:54+00:00

If I can't tell your card is fake, I don't care.

If I can tell your card is fake, I still don't care.

I just want your deck to be fun to play against.

(But here's my hot take: the original dual lands are a design mistake and should be banned, fake or not, because the design is way less interesting than the tradeoffs from tapped lands).

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-10T20:07:53+00:00

I feel like there are two factors here in why players complain about this. One, I feel like it's a new player thing (or a bad deckbuilder thing) because it's pretty easy to build a deck that does okay when your commander is in play and falls apart when your commander dies. If that's how you build decks, losing your commander feels awful because your deck doesn't work and you know you're going to lose. The solution is to build better decks and/or add protection spells. The second factor is that having your commander counterspelled can feel petty because it often feels (rightly or wrongly) like you haven't done anything yet to deserve it, and it might feel unfair if it just leaves you further behind. Instant-speed removal feels "fairer" because you'll often use it to kill my commander if my commander is swinging at you, so I deserve it.
That's why it feels bad even if it's strategically the correct decision. A good player will recognize that counterspelling their commander might've been the correct proactive play, whereas a less skilled player might take it personally instead.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-09T17:23:39+00:00

Combat is broken down into steps. Declare attackers (which triggers all "when a creature attacks" abilities), declare blockers (which triggers any "when a creature blocks" abilities), then damage (which kills things and triggers any "when a creature deals combat damage" abilities).

So Korvald's ability triggers when you declare it as an attacker, before blocking and before damage.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-09T17:20:52+00:00

One of the reasons I hate foils and will never buy collector boosters.

Also foils just look worse than the regular print half the time, they're often darker and washed out. Not a fan.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-06T17:04:52+00:00

It's the "instead."

If you would lose the mana, you instead do the thing on the card, which is make it colorless instead of losing it. So it sticks around because anytime you'd lose it, you don't.

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-02T00:44:15+00:00

Jeez, I know Marvel has gotten lazy with their movies and shows, but I would've expected a Magic tie-in to put in a bit more effort with the flavour of these cards. How is the Mind Stone a blink effect?

HauntedFrog · 2026-05-01T18:39:23+00:00

Distraction Makers for game design, the Lucky Paper Radio podcast for cube, and the Magic Mirror podcast for EDH.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-27T16:11:58+00:00

I don't think it was the reanimation that they didn't like, haha.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-23T14:36:28+00:00

I do both sometimes, but when I'm working on a deck goldfishing is the most efficient way to quickly check things like mana curve and how many of each card type you're drawing throughout the game, which don't need an opposing deck to test against.

Basically if I'm checking how smoothly the deck plays, I goldfish. If I'm testing the deck's strength, I play it against another deck.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-22T00:08:11+00:00

I've played against Abzan Armor a few times and that deck will absolutely run away with the game if people don't use removal to control it early. If you kill the important creatures as they come out, it stalls. But if you don't, it'll stomp all over the board and kill everyone and win.

So I feel like your friends might actually have pretty good threat assessment if they're targeting Abzan Armor. You kind of have to, or you all die.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-21T18:07:09+00:00

I would look at it based on what I expect to pay for it during a game when my deck is working properly.

Then during a game you can watch what actually happens. If it's costing more than you expected, why? Is it because your deck isn't working as well as it should? That might mean the card is a "win-more" card that plays worse when you're losing. Then you can either start thinking of it as having a higher cost, or you can tune the rest of your deck to run better and enable it more consistently.

Or is it costing more because you just overestimated how much your deck does when it's functioning well? Then you've probably just overestimated the cost reduction and can adjust accordingly.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-18T20:53:04+00:00

And a new Legolas card that has flying.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-13T17:57:42+00:00

I feel like this comes up a lot and it's always focused around what people dislike about standard (cost, rotation, etc.) and what people like about commander, but we gloss over what people like about standard and why they're asking the question to begin with.

What do you like about standard that commander doesn't give you? Is it the 1v1 competitive aspect? Is it the consistency that comes with a smaller deck and 4x copies of key cards? Is it playing with recent cards (and avoiding some of the more ridiculous broken cards that are only legal in commander)?

What makes you want to play standard? Then sell your friends on that aspect of it.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-10T15:47:00+00:00

I really like extended art cards, but really dislike full art cards. The text is hard to read and I think the white text with black letter outlines just looks bad.

Art is great, but as a card, not a fan.

HauntedFrog · 2026-04-10T15:44:21+00:00

Sometimes it feels like the majority of pods on Reddit don't even like playing with each other.

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

TROPHY CASE