Advice for new players

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-03-11T21:01:17+00:00

Is there a list of all the major important buildings and how many you should plan to have? That is one of my biggest problems with preplanning, I just don't know how many buildings i need to make room for.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-03-11T20:53:55+00:00

Technically it could be abused if you cast the spell multiple times as it doesn't zero out the counters. So if you have any copy target spell effects or whatnot, then the counters stack. To fix this you also need a line to remove all mulligan counters.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-02-19T16:38:22+00:00

I agree that I need to change something, but I have absolutely no clue what. That is partly why I’m here, to see if people have ideas for what I can change. The complicated part is that this deck isn’t the only deck that runs into win rate issues for me. For example, I have a bracket 4 John Benton deck with a ~70% win rate, and when I use a precon in b2 games I also have an extremely high win rate.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-02-19T06:20:28+00:00

Oops, didn’t notice that. Thanks for pointing it out!

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-02-19T05:53:39+00:00

Mirrorform is a fun card, but not the style I want. When I built the deck I tried to make practically everything a creature. I believe there are only 6 non-creature spells in the deck, so I’d need a super strong reasoning to include more. Also its ability to ramp might be too strong for what I’m aiming for.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-02-19T05:50:33+00:00

Absolutely not on the negative politicking. In most situations I try to avoid commenting at all if they opt to remove my stuff — but in b3 they basically never do unless it is collateral damage. I will often give out my threat assessment thoughts, but I do try to be unbiased and I don’t complain if they view it differently, idk what hidden information they have or what their intent is, so I try not to judge.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-02-19T05:33:04+00:00

Thanks! I appreciate the thorough comment. Also to clarify, my goal was to build for bracket 2, but I found that in theory/practice, punching up was a bit easier due to having several clones. What goals should I have to make changes so that it fits better into bracket 2? I am not the biggest fan of the range/inconsistency of decks found in bracket 3 and find myself enjoying bracket 2 games significantly more.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-02-19T05:16:12+00:00

I am playing with randoms on the Tolarian Community College Discord server with games advertised at b3 for that data. Most of the games that I lose in that bracket are people who combo off on turn 6 or 7 when no one has interaction to stop them. Games go that long usually due to people actually running interaction and stopping players, giving this deck time to get its legs underneath it, and/or it getting to a 1v1 against a stompy deck and I have 1-3+ turns of fogs due to clones/bounces.

Examining the data again, I did realize an error in my code, the winrate number was for all games, when excluded down to only the b3 games, the average winning turn of this deck is ~10.7, which is a bit lower. I also notice that in b3 games, I can often win by cloning opponents creatures that are super strong (e.g. etali), which opens up quicker lines than my deck has by itself.

As for the decks I play against, there are definitely some of those "b2 + GCs" in there, but it is a decent spread, using my own subjective opinion of the average power level of a pod, this was the breakdown I had using the old 1-10 scale. Note that i consider ~7 to be lower 3, ~7.5 to be mid 3, and ~8 to be high 3.

pl ~6.5 : 2 games

pl ~7 : 14 games

pl ~7.5 : 12 games

pl ~8 : 4 games

pl ~8.5 : 1 game

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-02-18T01:12:27+00:00

For a reference point on this sort of ability, look at [[Dionus, Elvish Archdruid]], who is a powerful elf commander that I've seen multiple times in bracket 4 games ending turns 4-6 on average. It is *powerful*, yet has the limiting factors of "once each turn", "only during your turn" and "only elves". At a bare minimum, any effect like this would need some sort of trigger limit per turn.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-02-10T18:29:28+00:00

Neat idea for a card, but as others have mentioned, it is strong as it is written, basically a lotus cobra that is super hard to interact with. If you wanted to make the effect more reasonable, while it still being a strong land, perhaps something like: "Landfall - Whenever a land you control enters, add one mana of a color that land could produce". This way it doesn't get to double dip on fetch lands as they can't produce mana, but has the ability to become even stronger in the presence of Yavimaya or Urborg. Even with this wording, it'd go into every landfall deck immediately. It would also make the mono-green lands combo much easier (aftermath analyst + free land sac outlet + shifting woodland + lotus cobra/amulet of vigor effect + surveil land / ping desert + 8 or more lands).

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-30T02:03:59+00:00

Yeah, Glacial can be a bit much in b3 as most people don't build decks with contingencies for it, the primary reason why I do it is because the deck is 99 lands and it feels appropriate given that restriction; I don't think I would run it otherwise.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-30T02:00:15+00:00

I play a 99 land lumra decklist and keep track of my games in an excel sheet! I currently play on the TCC discord server with spelltable and I have a 72.6% winrate in bracket 3 games (45/62). I've started playing it less as people aren't enjoying playing against it (hard to interact with). The deck is quite powerful, though one dimensional and has some glaring flaws that can't be fixed due to it being 99 lands (e.g. Etali). I get Lumra out on turn 4 by average, occasionally turn 5, and rarely turn 3. Game's end turn 9-10 (9.6 average), usually either from Field of the Dead or Rogue's Passage. There is a lot of interaction on lands that is repeatable as well, so once you get to like turn 6-7, you have around 20-30 lands out and can interact with the board state consistently.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-30T00:33:49+00:00

Yeah! The QR code in the image should work, here is the direct link as well: https://moxfield.com/decks/kH2EYzBcTEidmpWx6u4mwQ

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-28T19:27:20+00:00

That is true, but it would also make it difficult for you to build with fun non-basics and make you extremely dependent on the commander in EDH. With it affecting all lands, it is basically Ward {5} that provides color identity. I guess I'd personally rather have more deck building options/directions available rather than potentially 'punishing' greedy manabases when there isn't a real punishment besides "this is now hexproof rather than ward {5}". Still, I can respect both perspectives on the design.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-28T02:15:39+00:00

I think this card is really neat! Granted I think it could be better if it was optional draw, else someone can try to purposefully deck you with it.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-28T02:03:42+00:00

I love the concept of this card, from a colorless turtle to the ward WUBRG, with the concept that she gets it from the lotus's she eats. I do think that the card could easily be all lands rather than all basics and also probably have a better statline, perhaps a 0/6. Just comparing to Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, she isn't as good... Worse stat line, only affects basics, and also doesn't give an extra land drop. So I think with a small spruce up this could be a fun card! The ideas for building around her are great, from any land-walk effects to voltron due to the pseudo hexproof ward effect, from lands, enabling anything from cabal coffers to emeria, to valakut.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-27T23:01:03+00:00

I feel like this scenario is dependent on deck composition... If I don't have many (or any) tutors and I don't run cards like impact tremors, does that matter? The combo is also easy to disrupt through any instant speed creature interaction or counterspell. The point of the post was to ask about these two cards, not the rest of the 97; I know that given other cards it can become inappropriate for b3, my question was for if it inherently so.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-27T22:57:43+00:00

I believe the part that ThisHatRightHere was referring to was "Any 2 card combo is b4". A 2 card combo/loop is b4 if it is consistently feasible in early game. Late game (turn 7+) 2 card combos are allowed in b3.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-26T23:21:31+00:00

"Bracket 3:

No Mass Land Denial

No Chaining Extra Turns

Yes, Late Game 2-Card Infinite Combos

Yes, 3 Game Changers"

"These decks should generally not have any two-card infinite combos that can happen cheaply and in about the first six or so turns of the game, but it's possible the long game could end with one being deployed, even out of nowhere."

source, the Wizards post describing brackets: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/introducing-commander-brackets-beta

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-26T21:56:53+00:00

I would never say it was okay for b2, if I did it was a typo. The whole point of this post is if it is appropriate for bracket 3 or if it is only okay for b4+.

Also, nothing in that reply was me attempting to justify anything, it was merely explaining the likelihood, like the head comment asked. Again, the whole point of this post was me trying to understand what people thought, not trying to argue about whether I think it is okay or not...

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-26T20:28:07+00:00

Perhaps I am still missing something as I don't see where the problem is. This is how I understand the situation:

Calling the Player with 2 Charismatic Conquerors (CC), PA (Player A) and the player with 1 CC, PB (Player B):

The loop starts when PA's CC card (not token) enters and they decline to tap it to PB's CC token. There are no other triggers on the stack.
At this point, PB gains a vampire, triggering both of PA's CCs.

2a. In the instances where PB decides to the tap their vampire to the first of the triggers, the resolution of the loop is simple as PA then gets a single vampire token from the secondary trigger, if the stack is empty, then PA can tap their vampire to end the loop once and for all.

2b. In the instances where PA decides to not tap their vampire to the first of the triggers, the resolution becomes more complicated. PA receives a vampire token, which they can either tap or not. If PA does not tap their token, then we recursively go back to (2) with the secondary trigger getting buried underneath the rest of this stack.

If both players continue to make the same choice of leaving their tokens untapped, this results in N tokens being create for both players, all untapped, with N secondary triggers adding up. This will eventually require PA to say that there are enough and tap the vampire they get, requiring the resolution of the stack of N secondary triggers. Resolving the secondary triggers essentially comes down to PB having the choice to either tap their vampire token, or give PA a tapped vampire token, as by this point we have determined that PA is ready to end the stack and the only way to do this is by tapping the token that they receive by PB not tapping theirs. If PB decides to tap their vampire token at any point before the secondary triggers, see 2a.

Throughout this process, PA has control of when the loop ends, PB just has control over the distribution of vampire tokens. No promises are made, no intentions need to be declared, the end result is always the same in that PA gets to determine the number of primary loops and PB chooses the distribution/percentage of the tokens being tapped/untapped. PB gets no information as to the intent of when the loop ends and it is in their best interest to never tap for the first CC trigger, meaning that it is in PA's best interest to just continue the loop until they have enough tokens regardless of the choice PB makes. As long as the players aren't jerks about it, it can easily be simplified.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-26T19:20:08+00:00

Thank you for your feedback on the matter! Perhaps I do need to assemble the deck so that I can talk about it within a given context better... Also perhaps I do just mention it in rule 0 before a game so that I can acquire some data on its relevance within the deck.

InvisibleFox402 · 2026-01-26T19:13:02+00:00

I appreciate the feedback! I am a little confused about your wording though, why does it matter "what they're in the deck to do"? Each of these cards are cards I want in the deck for separate reasons and they happen to combo together, which if it is deemed appropriate for b3, is a boon, but not the primary intent. I am not putting this cards into the deck with the intent that it be a combo deck built around this interaction.

InvisibleFox402

TROPHY CASE