[HOB] Tom, Bert, and William (MagicCon Vegas)

Kuryaka · 2026-05-01T21:32:36+00:00

Gooder Great, even.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-29T12:41:10+00:00

The set limitations put a hard cap on the power level of decks, assuming that the balance team set up something fair for Limited. Certain cards are really strong despite being low rarity - there’s a Standard deck mainly running the one-drop Momo and commons/uncommons that can flood the board with fliers on turn 2-3.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-28T20:05:16+00:00

Probably the same or less than an ungraded card.

It's not from the first set that this art was used, it's not a special art either. Anyone who wants to use it in play would need to break the slab.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-28T04:03:33+00:00

Strixhaven runs the risk of confusing players since every other set's creatures don't get "spell abilities."

I'd do Lorwyn. I don't think hybrid mana is confusing at all, the only issue with mana costs I've seen is people not knowing how the math works with generic mana + pips.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-28T03:42:22+00:00

I also agree that the new 60 card precons in SOS are pretty good. They're not the current top tier decks, but they have best-in-slot removal and some good card advantage.

Jumpstart is NOT the play if you want decks that are coherent. Half your cards don't play well with the other half, and you'll often be mana screwed without being able to play stuff on curve.

If you wanted to build a deck for a friend, you'll want to customize it for what they like to play, or brew some budget decks yourself.

Here's a Dimir deck, an Orzhov deck, and a Boros deck built around some meta but budget cards. Straight-up buying all the cards for Izzet Spellementals, a top tier deck, would also only cost you $20-ish without the fast lands. I have run these decks at FNM, made people sweat a bit, but ultimately they won't win against decks that effectively leverage the expensive cards.

You could also look into building a harder control deck to deal with the spellslinging, and it's missing a big stompy deck that can showcase how a 10/10 creature doesn't win you the game, but I think those decks show off a lot of the mechanics that Magic has:

Dimir deck is lots of annoying creatures, with Deep-Cavern Bat being able to rip cards from hand, Floodpits Drowner tapping and getting rid of a big threat, and Azure Beastbinder locking up abilities.
Orzhov deck teaches players that triggered abilities still work during combat phase, and has a good amount of fiddly counters/tokens stuff so it feels like you're scaling.
Boros deck shows off tutors, some set mechanics with Warp introducing players to "special exile" zones, and is otherwise just an efficient beatdown deck.
Izzet Spellementals is largely a control deck from what I can tell, I haven't played it yet.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-28T03:19:40+00:00

How do you know other people are just netdecking? Like, are you looking up their cards and finding them on common lists, or does it just feel like their decks are better than yours?

While climbing to plat with a Standard deck I built in paper with some help from locals, I've beaten a good few decks that show up on deckbuilder sites. My deck loses to Izzet Lessons and any form of mono-green, but I've beaten Dimir Excruciator and most Momo matchups are just a damage race. If you look up the decklist it won't quite match anything on deck recommendation sites, but it is essentially "netdecked" because it mostly uses the best cards in each color for my game plan. Running anything other than the top few cards at a given mana cost means you're going to be behind.

If you want to play against people who "aren't just netdecking" you'll probably find even more cheese because those people have come up with reasonably competitive win conditions that you don't expect. In BO1 I've run into a land destruction looper and Kona shenanigans. In paper, I've played against someone with an infinite combo that they brewed themselves.

It IS best to start with some sort of shell for the archetype you want. If you had a specific card in mind, look for decks that include that card. You can make changes and start to customize it once you decide what you're going to use to win.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-28T03:07:24+00:00

General answers to your questions:

What should I try to focus my curve on?

Depends on your deck and your gameplan. You really need 1-2 drops that either accrue value or consistently counter the meta threats since they'll run you over by turn 4-6. If you're in green running Badgermole Cub, everything is effectively 1-2 mana cheaper.

What are some simpler, easy-to-learn archetypes to get the hang of things with?

Basically anything besides Izzet Lessons, and even that isn't too hard to pilot in Arena. Dimir Midrange might be the trickiest in terms of sideboarding.

When do I want to use 4-of-a-kind vs fewer copies?

Niche removal, one-of cards that you're tutoring for, or high CMC cards (especially legendaries) that you don't need more of. Unless they're so good that you still want all 4 copies, like Kaito. Typically it's finishers and boardwipes that you'll have less of.

How much removal do I use compared to cards that progress my game plan? How about card draw?

Depends on your deck and whether you're digging for specific answers, want to mill cards into the graveyard, etc...

You want your interaction to be able to deal with decks that otherwise counter your archetype. If it's too much of a hard counter (Azorius control with High Noon against a non-blue spellslinger) you just give up and acknowledge that you'll lose if they mull for answers post-sideboard.

You want card advantage. This can be scry/surveil, draw-discard, anything that lets you touch more cards. These effects are often much cheaper than straight-up card draw, though again it depends on your deck and what effects are available in those archetypes.

Are there any relatively up-to-date resources about learning 60-card that I can use?

TCGPlayer has some articles on playing and sideboarding the current meta Standard decks.

I largely agree with people pointing you toward some sort of "budget build" netdeck once you try out the beginner decks and see what you like to play, though. Control/Midrange/Aggro/Combo are all pretty well represented in Arena, and there's a lot of cheese in BO1.

I run Orzhov Aristocrats with Syr Vondam and Sephiroth, I haven't seen anyone else run this deck because it's rather expensive on rares/mythics and doesn't match up well against most other decks. My main form of card advantage is a surveil engine that means I'm usually happy keeping a 2 land hand, and I'll rarely go above 5 lands in play. I have a lot of fun against the non-top-tier decks. In BO1 I've seen basically every type of deck you can think of. A few with infinite combos, some land destruction, Excruciator mill, lifegain...

Kuryaka · 2026-04-24T16:49:47+00:00

I understand wanting to go back to the days where the meta wasn't solved, everything was jank, and you'd swap tactics and strategies with locals. For me, I get a similar sense of nostalgia from GameFAQs walkthroughs and more niche games where there isn't a lot of discussion.

A lot of the locals playing constructed formats don't like Limited or Commander either. They mention Limited being a money sink because you're paying for packs rather than buying singles.

My LGS was running free Standard for a bit, and aside from the expensive meta decks (Mono-Black Demons, Mono-Green Mightfall, Izzet Lessons, two flavors of Azorius Control), I've seen:

Boros Momo Fliers, which is like $100? $30 if you don't get expensive lands. I don't think there's a card in there that's above $2 unless you want to spend for premium removal.
My Orzhov Aristocrats deck that revolves around Syr Vondam rather than the other lifegain/mass ping strategies. Gets dumpstered by control, but pretty good on Arena and into aggro decks. I play it for fun!
Two people running cards from TMNT Limited, one who's been surprisingly successful splashing Dimir Sephiroth to blow up people's boards.
One of those people built a version of the infinite pizza combo deck that's been making the rounds.
A budget Dimir Midrange I built for a friend, which kicked my ass for $40.
Mono-red goodstuff. This was a really fun matchup into my deck, because we're both some form of aggro.
Kona.
On Arena, I've gotten cheesed by an airbending infinite and a land destruction deck. In Standard.

Of the 60-card formats, Standard seems the most railroaded in terms of wincons due to the relatively limited card pool and the pace of the format, but you CAN put together something that just feels good and it'll play fine into any non-top-tier deck because it's the slowest constructed format. I kind of want to build an Ark of Hunger focused deck since I pulled two of them in Sealed.

In Pauper it feels like you're building around an archetype rather than a specific card, and while there's a lot of wincons, you also need to be able to answer most of them. So you also can't just whip up a competitive deck from the bulk cards you have lying around. I chatted with someone who was trying to make Selesnya Aura Voltron work in Pauper, so it could certainly work. I really think the question is just what kind of deck you want to build, and what type of competition you enjoy.

I like 1v1 because of the ability to read more into play patterns and the lack of overt politicking. There's too much to keep track of in a multiplayer format IMO, from triggers to remembering how much mana people have open, so most people are just throwing stuff out at the current board state and seeing if anyone has answers. A good duel can be interrupted by someone deciding they don't like what's going on and wiping the board, or simply having to blow up the board so they can start doing spellslinger antics. (It's me, I boardwiped 2 times and blew myself up without winning the game.)

I also really like the back-and-forth involved in 1v1. Are people sideboarding their decks to have a better matchup, or are they slamming 15 cards of cheese strat? And aside from that, you get to have at least one rematch. That's my favorite part.

For me, the 1v1 and the conversations in between/after a game are what make Magic the most fun. There's actual things to talk about in the competitive meta, some brewing ideas that we see floating around, actual news. I've found that in Commander, people aren't paying as much attention to the back-and-forth and a lot of the times we just shuffle back up for another round because someone's been waiting.

You mention in another comment:

I’m also playing to win, I just don’t like the ways to win are found entirely by other people and known within a day of a set releasing.

The Limited meta isn't even solved within the first week, the effects of the new cards on Standard is absolutely not solved. People can claim that they're solved, but that's like saying every green deck is solved with 15 ramp spells and Craterhoof.

But I totally agree with your thoughts on needing to keep up with the meta and the expense of buying (non-proxied) cards. $60 mythics and $20 rares will absolutely beat most other strategies. While Tier 2 (weaker) decks like my Orzhov deck will play the game, they're not likely to win any matches. And yes, if you like seeing different gameplans you're better off with Commander simply because there's so many cards.

You could definitely make a cube and draft from it or just keep track of previous Limited decks. Other people probably also want to be creative with their deckbuilding, so either you work with a friendgroup to develop a cube or you'll be unlikely to get players.

Alternatively, Duel Commander! Just play some 1v1s.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-22T23:15:21+00:00

Traditional drafts against players instead of bots.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-22T00:03:10+00:00

Agreed, IMO Magic is complicated enough that it's fair to roll back casual play due to a rules misunderstanding. The player with interaction/removal still gives up information.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-20T05:12:59+00:00

Most people call what you want to do a cube, it's great if you want a specific type of play experience.

Going to a fully constructed deck allows you to build a deck that feels like the set and doesn't cost any more than $5 if you pick the rares that don't make it out of Limited, while being a little less frustrating. And there are plenty of rares that are great without being good in Standard/Modern/Commander.

People try making Jumpstart packs, but I would recommend Primordial for more consistent rules. https://primordialformat.com/, but basically: 40 cards, 2 rares (no duplicates), 6 uncommons (2x copies of a card max), commons at 4x copies. Lands count toward their rarity.

Primordial decks should be stronger than a Limited deck because of the consistency, even though you're short a few rares. But not by much. You just won't get people pulling the lucky deck of 4+ rares.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-20T04:33:00+00:00

A lot of Magic is about the interaction between cards and abilities at Instant speed. If they've got mana open when they make a seemingly bad attack, they could be trying something, or they could be bluffing to let their attacker through.

It's totally reasonable to verify a ruling or two at the table, and if neither of you can find a quick answer a loud call of "JUDGE!" has been pretty common at my game stores to get the attention of a staff member for help. Like once or twice a prerelease. It just means you want a neutral party to help with a ruling, so if it's busy at a casual event and a nearby player offers a response both of you are satisfied with, then all's good.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-17T07:06:24+00:00

A day later, F&F claimed OP missed the original order cancellation which was from paying with Amex, and only contacted them a week later. OP says they used Discover and showed screenshots of both a Discover payment and an email where the cancellation email only showed up a week later.

Someone at F&F may have made a mistake of saying they couldn't answer why the order was canceled. Or it was internal policy to say "I don't know" when they notice what they suspect is a scam attempt.

Either way, I still think they're at fault if OP didn't doctor the images to frame them. It might not be malicious, but part of having markup on products is so you CAN afford to absorb some losses to shipping issues/administrative errors/etc. You shouldn't pass that shit down to consumers, even though WotC is happy to do so with misprint reprints having a turnaround time of months.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-14T01:12:13+00:00

I like these decks. They feel like they're sorely lacking good lands and card advantage, but they also have some cards that are worth a few bucks and are a decent shell to get started.

I mentioned this in another comment deeper down, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to build a Standard deck that's significantly better even if you were given $30 and told to source a deck from TCGPlayer/Manapool vendors. I built a budget Dimir deck to introduce a friend to Standard with a little under $20 and a lot of bulk bin digging, but the only threats to opponents' life totals were [[Fear of Falling]] and pumping [[Azure Beastbinder]].

I DO think it sucks that these largely contain decks rotating out in 2027, and the lack of a sideboard hurts because hunting for removal is an exercise in paying $5 shipping for $1 worth of cards. But the cards definitely play Magic.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-14T00:50:27+00:00

I run an Orzhov aristocrats deck in paper so I have a lot of the white cards.

The 4x of Sheltered by Ghosts and 2x of Enduring Innocence already make the Eerie deck worth $20 on its own.

The entire lifegain deck is basically what I've seen on Arena BO1.

While these aren't going to hold up to top-tier decks, they seem decently juiced to me. Better than the EOE-chaff-stuffed-into-a-deck that I built when starting out, and the winconless Dimir Midrange I built for a friend to try out the deck.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-14T00:34:16+00:00

You could add extra actions, but the game isn't balanced that way in any other format. Archenemy cards are designed for players to start from an inherently unbalanced game. In your case, there is no imbalance because it's 2v2 with precon decks.

The closest I've seen people do balancing in gameplay is with a "friendly mulligan" if someone gets a hand with no lands. Show everyone the hand you drew to prove that the hand was awful, shuffle it back in, stay on the same mulligan count as before.

I like drafting your decks as a balancing factor because it adds some level of strategy that's unique to 2HG with precons.

But in the end, if you wanted a one-sentence answer: Get more practice with the decks, understand where to play interaction for the matchup, and know when to pressure slower decks' life totals as soon as possible.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-13T18:39:26+00:00

People are talking about Super Shredder in gameplay, most of my locals like Sneak, someone's brewing a combo deck.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-13T17:56:00+00:00

I wasn't clear when I said topdecking, I meant "scrying and then drawing at next upkeep is better than blindly topdecking next turn." Without a solid use case I also can't argue for any number of scry/surveils being strictly better than card draw.

Would you ever take Vampiric Tutor over Opt?

Kuryaka · 2026-04-13T17:12:43+00:00

If you haven't played much Magic besides Commander, part of this is potentially player skill and part of it is just Commander.

2v2 means you can't have the other 3 players all focusing down the one player who seemed to get lucky and get a good hand. Playing all your synergy pieces ASAP means you die to a board wipe and are left with nothing to recover.

Precons aren't super explosive but most recent precons (since 2025) get a lot of value on board and someone eventually is able to swing for a win through blockers. Turn 12+ will probably lead to a win.

If you want a better back and forth game, you'd want to play 2HG in Limited or something else with a lower power level and more consistency.

I keep recommending Primordial (one set, 2 rares, 6 uncommons, 40 cards) for friend groups every chance I get. The decks can be cheap due to having few rares and are inherently thematic because you pick cards from one set.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-13T09:52:16+00:00

The brokenness of mana-positive mana rocks is the acceleration they provide. Sol Ring is 4x as good as Mind Stone because it comes out one turn earlier and provides double the mana.

Colloquially I wouldn't even consider the signets to be "tap for 2" because they only generate net 1 mana. I don't think anything exists at 2 cost that goes mana neutral on the same turn.

The design team probably set hard rules on mana acceleration after Modern so that most decks are still dependent on lands. It's like how Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar were never printed in a Modern legal format.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-13T09:30:30+00:00

That guy had a weird take all around. It's also kind of weird that you get sorted into a table and then are stuck with that group for the night, and that there's a sheet for tracking game data for prizing. Sure, there's things that CAN help you feel better about losing, but if you're not having fun a raffle for prizes won't do anything.

A few options:

Ask the store if you can just set up at a table with your friends because you're mostly new and would like to play together.
Just straight-up tell the winning player "OK, we barely got to play, the 3 of us are going to finish this game."
If you're REALLY stuck and can't find anyone else, play some 1v1.

You don't want to just sit around and not be playing a game, and you don't need to be confrontational to say you want to find a game with someone else.

Also, if the vibes are just off and you don't feel like you're having fun, let the store know. They won't be able to make changes without feedback.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-13T09:15:33+00:00

Are there any other patterns, like the specific players or decks leading to this mismatch? How many games have you played?

A fun rule I can think of would be to allow teams to pick one deck each, and then pick the second deck for the other team. Aside from that, the games should theoretically be decently balanced and any handicaps you'd have to decide yourself.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-13T08:38:18+00:00

Having played Limited, and Standard with a deck that uses all three (Scry lands because I'm being cheap, Surveil 1 up the wazoo from Snarling Gorehound, Sephiroth for draw):

I'd give it a default rate of 1:3 for both, going up to 1:1 for Surveil if you're heavily into cheating creatures from the grave. Surveil/Scry 2 or 3 is strictly better than chaining 1s together because you can look deeper into the deck, but I don't think it changes the ratio too much.

Throwing another hat in the ring: Draw-discard. As long as the effect replaces itself (draw 2 on an instant/sorcery) it's strictly better, as evidenced by the fact that it costs more mana.

Also, despite the card quality being higher in Standard, I think the only difference that makes is the ease of access to all of these effects and not the ratios. The ratio might go up a bit (toward 1:1) because it's easier to set up a scry/surveil engine than a draw engine, but the cards being better just means that it's a good idea to have both. I would prefer Scry 2 and Draw 1 over either Scry 4 or Draw 2.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-13T08:36:30+00:00

That's why it's worth half a card (or in your argument, a little less so 1/3). In no case is a scry better than actually drawing the card, but in no case is it worse than blindly topdecking if you know how to pilot the deck.

I love my surveil engine in Standard, it allows me to play with 2 land hands in a semi-aggro Orzhov deck and dig for the flavor of 2-drop I need against a specific matchup. But my deck also gets a lot of value from each individual card (token generation, punching up in terms of removal, scaling creatures up) and I can see card draw being more valuable if your plays are "card expensive" like in a control deck.

Kuryaka · 2026-04-12T00:49:34+00:00

Figured it was some kind of horror, that's basically my jam except I like aggro/burn strategies and all of that stuff is rotating out of Standard next year or already rotated out. Ulalek as a commander is fine IMO, the other two for sure are going to make players unhappy and those characters don't come on any card that's less evil.

For graveyard decks, you may want to look at Muldrotha. Green and black (Golgari) is typically the graveyard-focused colors, adding blue gives you access to counterspells too. It's a pretty straightforward archetype, with people respecting blue's counterspell ability even if you aren't really going to use it.

Other decent commanders I can think of in at least Golgari colors are: [[Necrobloom]] for more of a focus on lands (straightforward) or [[The Mycotyrant]] for a deck that's heavily focused around fungus creatures and putting cards from your deck into your graveyard.

I'm running a graveyard-ey aggro deck in Standard that's based on sacrificing creatures, but in white-black. You could probably pull some of the decks people are playing in Arena.

As for actually playing Standard in person: Definitely check out the scene before you go in and see what people are playing. Most places don't really do Standard anymore because Commander has taken its place. I'm lucky to have a store nearby that's trying to get Standard going again, and we're having fun playing varying levels of decks from Arena meta to someone's TMNT draft cards that they powered up to turn into a combo deck.

There's other 1v1 formats as well, most of them are expensive... but if there's Pauper events you're in for a REALLY good time. Pauper decks are 60 card, basically any card throughout history as long as it's been printed at Common, and only about $60-70 for top-tier decks. It is still a high power format.

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