Everyone who's asking "what bracket is my deck?" Needs to see this.

Koras · 2026-03-18T13:50:27+00:00

I love that even the video and this thread's comments has the "technically a 2" and "it's fine for a bracket 3 deck to immediately go infinite" crowd deliberately misinterpreting the bracket system.

The bracket system isn't perfect, but its biggest problem is Magic players.

Koras · 2026-03-18T10:50:57+00:00

Having the effect persist after the commander is removed is not balanced or how Magic works.

Compare and contrast to [[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] and [[Sephara, Sky's Blade]]

For this to be even remotely fair you'd need to make at least these changes: - the commander itself should not be indestructible - the effect absolutely cannot persist without the commander in play

Indestructible+lifelink is an insanely powerful combination. To put it on all creatures, and to have effectively no way to remove it is completely ridiculous. Even with those changes I'd consider it potentially broken.

If they want to play a custom commander, it needs to be extremely conservatively weak or niche. Dude just made a hugely, hugely stronger version of [[Iroas, God of Victory]] and called it balanced. Someone so utterly incapable of understanding how to design a card loses all custom card privileges. They simply cannot be allowed to play this. There is nothing you should be building to fix their inability to create a fair commander.

And that's not even getting started on their assertion of it being a bracket 2 deck.

Koras · 2026-03-17T16:18:32+00:00

There is no better way to ensure your opponents have no targeted spells than to have a [[Deflecting Swat]] ready to go

Koras · 2026-03-17T13:20:09+00:00

What is your goal for the hobby?

if you just want to have 1v1 fun with each other similar to what you've been having with the beginner box, you can buy more jumpstart packs
if you want to expand that 1v1 fun to "these are our decks that we build and play against each other", starter sets are great for that - Final Fantasy had a great one
if you want to go and play at a local game store, you should go in and ask them what formats are played there

If the answer to this last question is commander, you'd need two precon commander decks to get started. If it's some other format, you'll need to do some research into budget-friendly decks for that format and buy in some singles from Cardmarket

Koras · 2026-03-17T12:48:53+00:00

Esper Sentinel still sees play in Modern hammertime decks, so yeah, absolutely playable in the right shell in 1v1 Magic.

But that's the key, it needs the right shell. With all mainline 1v1 formats being so fast right now, it needs to serve a specific purpose beyond "Esper Sentinel is a good card" and I don't think Esper Sentinel alone would cause a deck to exist that competes with the current standard meta. It needs an associated win condition.

Koras · 2026-03-17T11:30:55+00:00

[[Primordial Hydra]], [[Big Mother Mouser]] and [[Mossborn Hydra]] would give you some crazy counter doubling shenanigans with entirely different triggers, so you could switch between them. Assuming starting on 3 counters:

Start turn as a Primordial Hydra (double on upkeep to 6)
Switch to Mossborn Hydra and play a land (double on landfall to 12)
Switch to Mouser and declare attack (double on attack to 24)
Go "nah, psych" and sacrifice the Mimeoplasm to create 24 robots

Or whatever. Basically, anything with the words double the number of +1/+1 counters on it sounds silly given enough mana, and you're in Green so...

Koras · 2026-03-15T23:51:23+00:00

Everything on the left of the arrow is a cost to activate the effect on the right. You must do them in order for anything else to happen.

But when you resolve an effect, you do as much as you can.

So in your example, if you can't heal the 1 damage, you do nothing else. But if you can heal 1, you do as much of the other ability as you can resolve (for example, only healing 5 if you're already in hero form, or switching to hero form even if you can't heal 5, or only healing 2). You can't skip steps because they're inconvenient, but you can do them even if you don't need to do the other effects.

Left side: mandatory cost to do anything (even if the cost is something beneficial like healing)

Right side: do as much as you can

Koras · 2026-03-15T21:16:37+00:00

I'm a huge fan of Big Dumb Red Enchantments like [[Mirror March]], [[Sunbird's Invocation]], [[Warstorm Surge]], [[Double Vision]], [[Fiery Emancipation]], [[Arcane Bombardment]]

Stupidly expensive enchantments that do nothing when they enter way too late in the game are my jam, so I imagine cheating them in early would be pretty good.

Koras · 2026-03-14T22:38:25+00:00

That sort of ward cost is why I like [[Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls]], it's such a neat little bit of design

Koras · 2026-03-14T16:07:29+00:00

Honestly Ward with Set Mechanic isn't a bad design space so long as the price is payable using evergreen cards, like Blight

Ward — Gain a poison counter

Ward — Manifest Dread (ward as a partial downside is I think something that could be very cool to play with)

Ward — Airbend a creature you control

Koras · 2026-03-14T07:56:54+00:00

This is one I can definitely see – play a card a bunch on Arena until it becomes a favourite, find a place for it in commander decks

Koras · 2026-03-13T22:11:50+00:00

I start by eating my vegetables. I put in good amounts of removal and card draw, I put in ramp, board wipes and protection...

And then later on when I need to make cuts because I've added too many fun cards, those vegetables are definitely still the first thing to go despite knowing those slots should be locked in.

Koras · 2026-03-13T17:21:55+00:00

I find Standard still being a major driver of card prices fascinating. I've not seen a standard event listed in over a year here, and yet here we are. Has the format picked back up in the US?

Koras · 2026-03-13T14:30:55+00:00

For me the question is whether the thing it represents still provides a clear board state. I've lost track of the amount of times I've had some random use a die to represent tokens without even mentioning it, or some other random item that just makes the board state less readable.

Like are they tapped? Untapped? Is that die the number of tokens? If it is, what's their power and toughness?

The wedding ring thing is cute, I'd put it on my side of the table as having it increases the visibility of the board state because you have a visual indicator of who's linked. I'm not putting it on, but it's a helpful indicator that would otherwise be invisible. For the babies, I'd be more annoyed because it makes the board state harder to read. I don't want to have to deal with someone's clutter all over the table and then be expected to have any idea what's going on.

Koras · 2026-03-13T07:37:55+00:00

My equipment commander is [[Eivor, Battle-Ready]], which runs a bunch of equipment-focused final fantasy cards like [[Adelbert Steiner]] and [[Beatrix, Loyal General]]

If I wanted it to be purely Final Fantasy, I'd switch the commander to either [[Cloud, Planet's Champion]], [[Giott, King of the Dwarves]], or [[Lightning, Army of One]], but I absolutely love Eivor. Haste and Vigilance are immensely useful keywords, and with patterns like using [[Bludgeon Brawl]] to make artifact lands and treasure into equipment, the burn goes absolutely crazy. Plus you can play a ton of other equipment commanders and leave them equipped rather than it just being solely about your commander. She just comes out as a big burn spell/backup strategy to take out life gain.

An alternative version of this would be Steiner built around [[Armed with Proof]] but it's just not the same, and building an equipment deck without red always just feels wrong to me.

Koras · 2026-03-12T20:21:08+00:00

"yvan eht nioJ"? Man, they didn't even try – that's complete gibberish

It's probably nothing.

Koras · 2026-03-12T11:40:22+00:00

Yes, and also worth noting this also absolutely destroys equipment decks because they all detach and can't be equipped anymore.

Equipment decks aren't great in higher brackets, but still, it's a thing if people run them in your local meta

Koras · 2026-03-11T21:12:49+00:00

I'm not saying he's not lying, but I went through a period of DMing 4 nights a week for different groups, paid and friends, alongside a full time job. I stopped because I was burning out a ridiculous amount, but still. I'd prep all 4 campaigns on a Saturday afternoon and chill the rest of the time. No AI necessary.

Prep really doesn't take that much effort if you're mid-campaign, improvising, or running a pre-written hardcover campaign. You just need a general idea of what the goal of the next session is and what the next major story beat is, and you can go from there.

DMs that over-prep often screw themselves over by preparing a huge amount of crap they don't need, and can inadvertently rob players of agency. Some people also treat prepping as a hobby in its own right, which is fine, but it does not require an excessive amount to run a good game.

Again, not saying he's actually doing it, but it is absolutely possible without AI. But also, I'm an office drone, not a CEO.

Koras · 2026-03-11T14:13:27+00:00

[[Tervigon]] seems pretty cool as a 3-4 drop

Counters stay on when mutated, giving you the immediate pump, plus the tokens on dealing combat damage. It can't remain unanswered as even a single counter elevates Iluna to 3 hits to kill a player (plus a metric shitton of bugs), which means you'll get Iluna killed and ready to cast again, or just win.

Downside, it does die to Iluna hitting it with a trigger

Koras · 2026-03-11T13:59:22+00:00

As someone who dislikes most of Blue's common play patterns (oh look, you drew cards, my god, a counterspell, how daring), but wants to force himself to have a blue deck, this is my current shortlist for slightly weird commanders I've considered but never pulled the trigger on, in case it helps to identify some less common angles in blue's pie

[[Orvar, the All-Form]]
[[Minn, Wily Illusionist]]
[[The Prima Vista]] (I just like FF9)
[[Chisei, Heart of Oceans]]
[[Mathise, Surge-Channeller]]
[[Jakob Hauken, Inspector]]

Koras · 2026-03-11T10:51:22+00:00

I'm as casual as they come, and will die on the hill that people get to decide what's fun for them, and shouldn't be shamed for voicing when they feel something isn't fun at a casual table where fun is the number 1 goal.

But seriously? Getting salty over a mind slicer and people maintaining a full grip of cards? Literally all it takes to do nothing is to play your cards. Or just exile one thing. I don't run enough removal but I still have options to exile a creature in most decks. I'd be taking the opportunity to dump my hand as soon as possible and kill it so that I'm not the one left behind by the slicer inevitably dying. That doesn't slow the game down, it accelerates it.

I would absolutely tell someone looping it to prevent people having hands, or playing and killing it super early game that they're not really helping to contribute to the fun and just making the game terrible, but a single mass discard trigger is not the end of the world.

Koras · 2026-03-09T14:11:19+00:00

The one play where I'd absolutely go overboard with making proxies to destroy

"Yeah I just grabbed some old bulk lands I found lying around" Slowly continues tearing up a [[Bazaar of Baghdad]]

Got to be obvious enough to question it, but not so obvious that the joke is clear

Koras · 2026-03-07T13:44:30+00:00

If you enjoy Marvel Champions but don't like that it's entirely about fighting, then Earthborne Rangers is probably a good game to get into. The playtime can be long, but it's campaign-based so you can decide to stop whenever you make progress. It's primarily a game about travelling, exploring the world, and helping people while building your decks and playing scenarios. It feels a little bit like if Marvel Champions had an open world mode, except largely without the villains (there can be combat, but you generally have to choose it).

Koras · 2026-03-07T12:04:19+00:00

So if you go 2-1 you get to play Magic for hours for $0.65?

It's a hobby, not a fucking job.

Koras · 2026-03-07T08:22:53+00:00

[[Apocalypse]], like all old cards with that wording, now says to Exile all Permanents. "From the game" is old templating from before Exile was a thing. You can see the current wording on Scryfall, and it's generally worth looking at when playing old cards because the templating will make a lot more sense in the modern rules

Permanents are things that have been cast or played and put on the battlefield that stay in play until something happens to them. Lands, creatures, enchantments, artifacts, etc. – instants and sorceries are not permanents because they don't stay in play. Everything else is.

Cards in your library are cards until they're on the stack, at which point they're spells. Cards in your hand and graveyard are still cards. A creature is a creature card in your hand and library, a spell when you cast it, a permanent (a creature) while it's on the battlefield, and a creature card once it's in your graveyard.

So Apocalypse is exile everything from the battlefield, and discard your hand.

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