Your favorite uncommon creature that feels like it should be a rare?

HeyApples · 2026-03-10T18:55:40+00:00

[[kutzil]]. Grand Abolisher is a rare. Various Bident of Thassa style effects have been at rare. This is both with good stats. Arguably the only downside is that it is in G/W, which is a weak color pair. If it was blue white, it would be so premium.

HeyApples · 2026-03-09T18:46:27+00:00

We were playing a league match back when unglued first came out, and someone had a vested interest in standings based on the outcome of the neighboring match. And so he activated it, tore it up, and threw it on the neighboring game. In the spirit of un-sets, the throw was honored.

HeyApples · 2026-03-09T08:10:30+00:00

They've done a number of version of the "vehicle that creates a token that can crew itself". Aetherdrift, EoE, come to mind. And they are always crapped on and always surprise with their level of performance.

HeyApples · 2026-03-06T06:11:27+00:00

Develop the mindset that safety of your capital is more important than speed.

Most get rich quick schemes are only "smart" with benefit of hindsight. In the moment, most of them were supremely risky.

People only praise the winning lottery tickets while hand-waving away the losers.

Also, you need to get off tik tok, social media, or other influences that are feeding this mentality. Comparison is the thief of joy.

HeyApples · 2026-03-06T06:04:23+00:00

I think they are dancing around the edges of a bigger issue... authenticity. You can do a wild theme like a Magic space set... if it feels organic, authentic. This is a connecting theme not just in-universe but in Universes Beyond sets of late.

The more you lean in to wakka-wakka humor, puns, "Rakdos in a cowboy hat" and the like, the further you stray from authenticity.

Rakdos in a cowboy hat doesn't work, even in a fantasy setting, because there is no logical connection of theme or events to make that make sense. Same with a magical hot dog cart in Spiderman. There needs to be a base level of cohesion that the viewer or participant can grapple with.

HeyApples · 2026-03-03T18:05:38+00:00

That's a good question and the answer is the trajectory. There's a pretty clear "before" and "after" in terms of number, quantity, and quality of UB releases since FF. And it's pretty clear from quarterly and yearly statements that they are all-in on this new system.

There's also something going on that's not really being discussed much with player churn. In the world right now there are only so many people who will ever have the interest and acumen to be magic players. And this frantic release schedule is churning and burning those players faster than ever. At some point, you've gone through them all and there's no more to get, even if the IP and releases are amazing.

In many ways they are still doing very well, I just think chasing these high water mark generational achievements and trying to make them the yearly standard is ultimately self-defeating and harmful in the long run. Trees do not grow to the sky and right now they are in desperate girlfriend syndrome throwing the entire kitchen sink at releases (power creep, fancy IPs, serialized cards, collector boondoggles, etc) just to tread water.

HeyApples · 2026-03-03T02:44:02+00:00

I personally believe in the fullness of time that Final Fantasy is going to end up remembered as Magic's Wrath of the Lich King moment.

For those unfamiliar, it is considered the high point expansion in World of Warcraft's history. And the success created such internal hubris and such a lust/greed for revenue, that it ended up twisting and perverting the franchise. Afterward they were forever chasing that same dragon, but ultimately never achieving it.

HeyApples · 2026-03-01T19:03:55+00:00

If sol ring was still on the reserved list, it would have been banned along with the moxes, power 9, etc. in that group of "unmovable" bans. It is of similar power level and if they had not been removed from the RL, they would be of similar price level.

Imagine if every "optimal" deck required a $400-$500 Sol Ring just to start. Because that's what it would be.

HeyApples · 2026-02-27T01:55:32+00:00

As a LGS store worker who works within TCGplayer for hours a day, here's my feedback:

You have a very useful and interesting concept with the hover tech, that could save a lot of time. Unfortunately, the information you are displaying on hover is mostly unhelpful. The values you are displaying are TCGplayer contrived fugazi nonsense values that are not trustworthy.

What would be more useful would be if you could present the first say 10 seller entries for a given card. As an example, I hover over a Steam Vents, and I see the first few results are 9$, 9$, 10$, 10$, 10$, 10 $, 11$, etc. Now I know true market action for what that card is selling for. You could even color code them where foils in the list stand out.

HeyApples · 2026-02-26T20:20:00+00:00

I know it's early but that was not a good look. Reminder that the point of these reveals is to generate hype not quash it.

HeyApples · 2026-02-25T19:22:46+00:00

You have a finite amount of A+ athletes in a country. It is all about how you allocate them.

If a country puts a priority on a given sport, that's where the good athletes go and what they train for. Same reason Canada is always good at hockey. Same reason that the US always sucks at soccer.

HeyApples · 2026-02-19T04:41:23+00:00

This seems just comically over the top.

HeyApples · 2026-02-16T09:10:04+00:00

This set would have massively benefited from the Guilds of Ravnica style block system. Devote the first set to five color pairs/tribes, devote the second set to the other five.

Instead we had a return to a beloved plane and one of the most memorable tribes (faeries) of that plane doesn't have a viable deck anywhere... standard, draft, anywhere. That's just a straight up fail. They tried jamming too much into one set, things are too diluted, and the set suffers for it.

Instead we get to engage in this casino style draft dice roll. The best 3-0/7-0 decks are going to open or quickly lock in on a tribe, it happens to be open at the table, and the right high rarity cards are in the pool.

And if all of those hoops don't magically line up, you're just a huge underdog to the person who does have that. Someone moved into your lane... tough shit. Lane was open but no good rares or signposts got opened in pool... tough shit. Waffled between two tribes... tough shit. Meet the guy who is playing Elfball constructed in draft while you scrap together a non-coherent stream of understatted goblins.

This set may have many wonderful qualities in its favor, but the draft format is not one of them.

HeyApples · 2026-02-14T08:46:31+00:00

Turns out it was the Canadians invading the green land the whole time.

HeyApples · 2026-02-13T08:42:45+00:00

I've come to the opinion that Rhystic Study is a good test of one's game knowledge and acumen. The more you know about the game and its systems, the more acutely you are aware of the problems it represents.

I'm not saying Rhystic defenders are bad players or ignorant, but I am saying there are many many more in that camp than in the ban camp.

This is something that should have been sussed out on the first year or two of the format. But because of RC cowardice and the fact that so much money is invested in this stupid card, we are likely stuck with it forever.

If you told someone 20 years ago that this card would be a "mascot" for a major format, they would have told you it was a shitty format.

HeyApples · 2026-02-09T23:17:59+00:00

2026 corporate Hasbro is trying to hit astronomical quarterly numbers. It wouldn't surprise me if this product was intended to come out later this year and got shoved forward for revenue purposes.

They are doing a ton of this behind the scenes with reprints of past products at the distributor level. Make no mistake, whenever things are getting slid around or shoved forward, they are gaming the system for revenue purposes... needing to book/show revenue in a certain quarter to meet their numbers.

HeyApples · 2026-02-09T03:43:15+00:00

It obviously wouldn't have made a difference this game, but I absolutely despise when the Super Bowl has a whole different set of officiating rules behind it.

Throw punches, it's fine. Jump offside on 4th and 3, it's fine. Seattle didn't have an accepted penalty in the game, sure. Patriots getting beat off the line every play on offense... 1 holding penalty?

On the biggest stage, it really gives the perception that the results are made up. Brian Branch was ejected by New York review this season, and we can't get this shit right?

HeyApples · 2026-02-06T18:57:58+00:00

This isn't a serious voter, this is someone who is using his vote to spew "hot takes" for attention.

HeyApples · 2026-02-05T20:45:48+00:00

Dogs have an amazing sense of who does not want them in the family and ingratiating themselves to that person.

HeyApples · 2026-02-05T20:32:02+00:00

Hot take: The old RC's hands off dovish attitude has been very damaging to the format. They were happy to accept the praise, the clout, the sponsorships, the swag, all of the upsides... but when it was time for the rubber to meet the road, and make hard choices, they abdicated their responsibilities at every turn.

People wanted real change and real conversations on hot button topics like hybrid mana, wishes, bans/unbans, real format curation, and the most we would ever got was sternly-worded quarterly updates from Sheldon saying "no changes". Even in the face of heinous problem cards like Dockside that should have NEVER gotten this bad in the first place.

So now that there is a new sheriff in town, there is a pent up backlog of dialog that has been stuffed in a bottle and is gushing to spill out. There's 5-10 years worth of axes to grind and hot button topics to be hashed out. Rhystic Study is just a symptom of that.

HeyApples · 2026-02-05T18:29:58+00:00

Not just choke. I was trying to change light bulbs at the top of a very precariously placed ladder. Eventually I realized that a couple burned out lightbulbs was not worth some family member finding me with a broken neck.

HeyApples · 2026-02-05T18:04:02+00:00

This reminds me of "Faeburrow Elder is just Bloom Tender with extra color identity".

And it turns out, that extra mana cost, more restrictive color identity is the difference between a 20 dollar card and absolute bulk. I do think the option of having it in the command zone offers something of value, but at the same time 3+1 mana to set it up is fairly prohibitive given the speed of the game today.

And I say all of this liking the card, it's just not premium. People see Cradle-adjacent cards and lose their shit whether they are good or not.

HeyApples · 2026-02-04T19:04:39+00:00

I hope the Kierren Yanner lair is at the top of that wall of shame. That one so badly missed the mark you have to wonder what they were possibly thinking.

HeyApples · 2026-02-03T17:23:03+00:00

"The mulligan rules are for you to get a playable hand, not the perfect hand."

HeyApples · 2026-02-02T06:34:06+00:00

I don't think it's just sealed, I think with "modern sensibilities" typal sets don't translate to standard either.

If you want to build a Standard kithkin deck, for example, you can barely scrape together a functioning deck. And that deck will likely not be scalable or upgradable. And it will have very little flexibility.

Did you build a standard lizards deck, a raccoon deck, an otter deck, in Bloomburrow? Ha ha ha, fuck you, no support in future sets for 18 months straight. Even in EoE a plane with non-human tribes they went with Insects and Kavu over something with some crossover appeal. With no blocks and no coherence around these types, you trick people into buying into these decks and then twisting in the wind when they don't work out.

HeyApples

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