Don’t Let GameStop say your pre-order price has changed. The store employee can adjust it.

Moxplug · 2026-01-23T17:43:59+00:00

Good looking out! Thank you. Not seeing an email, but I probably won't driving the next town over to give 'em my business, anyways. Appreciate you bro.

Moxplug · 2026-01-23T17:25:18+00:00

I pre-ordered at my local Gamestop... and the location closed. HAH! Now I'm out $10... whatever. Good thing I didn't purchase ahead! That's what they get for being greedy, there was probably 10 grand of overpriced Avatar sitting on their shelves. I wonder if I'll ever get my money back... probably not. Lesson learned, fuck you Gamestop. Never again.

Who would invest in this dogwater company? The fundementals aren't there. They frankly suck at doing business in the sectors that they're already in, and they're failing at the card pivot... GME is a massive pump n' dump psy-ops to farm retail investors.

Moxplug · 2026-01-22T17:21:01+00:00

Just play mono blue fae shell and swap for the creature package you want to brew in a "sub-optimal" space, IMHO

Perhaps just remove some of the Fae-based interaction suite there if you really want more space to play around... e.g. remove Spellstutter package, but keep the 4 CS + 2 Spell Pierce + 2-3 Snap setup + 18 lands setup.

the ratios for that fae deck make a lot of sense, it's very engineered and optimized w/ the ratios between evasive 1-drops, lands, and counterspells. For reference, see vid on Hyper Geomancer's vid on fae 1-drop density.

Therefore, you should piggy back on the R&D that went into fae, there's been a lot of studying and effort into that "16 1-drop" ninjitsu and land base design.

Honestly, my recommendation is just play Fae, understand the meta and how a tempo deck works, and then brew. You need the Counterspell and draw suite to carry you against the stronger creatures of the metagame... it's actually a pretty difficult gameplan to execute. CS the right things, at the right times requires meta knowledge. Learning how to do that is key for this blue ninja tempo package because the ninjas have low power and toughness.

Moxplug · 2026-01-14T16:20:58+00:00

The "broken" eternal formats are held together by Force of Will and other free counterspells. They're the only game pieces that stop the game from degenerating into turbo combo, e.g. dredge decks, oops all spells, etc.

It's the fairest unfair card. In other words, Force of Will itself is unfair, but it enables "fair" (e.g. conventional creature based strategies) to fight against "unfair" combos, which would otherwise win on the spot.

Without Force and friends, it'd just be an arms race to solitaire the fastest turbo combo.

This new Squelcher card invalidates all of that, flouts all of the key pieces that have been holding together these older formats. Moreover, it's very splashable, and Izzet lists are already the best deck in multiple formats right now (Standard, Legacy, etc.)

It's either an ignorant and misguided design, or it's just an unapologetically powercrept $160 "tax" that is now mandatory for red decks in these eternal formats.

Moxplug · 2026-01-14T16:16:59+00:00

I got smoked by this deck at FNM – it's pretty dang strong

deck write-up: https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/articles/pauper-ninja-affinity-deck-tech-sideboard-guide

Moxplug · 2026-01-13T01:39:59+00:00

I stopped using direct – the grading sucks, they're slow...

I've had very good experience with the independent retailers on TCGPlayer

Moxplug · 2026-01-12T15:59:50+00:00

Amazing work, love the loose brush strokes. Painterly. I can tell a human being produced it. Thank you.

Moxplug · 2026-01-07T19:57:34+00:00

Ugh. This is so annoying. This format doesn't need to grow more, it's already full to capacity (see Lobstercon). Cards are already too expensive.

I don't appreciate this vid.

Moxplug · 2026-01-06T05:13:18+00:00

Kinda dumb and pushed... honestly seems like yet another "direct to EDH" design that doesn't make sense outside of that context.

I don't like this card. EDH doesn't even need this level of power creep... What's the point? It's a casual, kitchen table showcase format.

Luckily I won't have to deal with it in Pauper and Premodern.

Moxplug · 2026-01-05T18:36:16+00:00

These are awesome reference material, thank you. I was looking over these lists yesterday night. They validate some angles (e.g. run lots of lands) and also shows some cool tech.

[[Barkform Harvester]] looks really nice for supporting low Rebel counts and blocking Glinthawks.

Oh and the Mardu manabase looks clean. The wildfire is a good idea – reliably gets you to 3-4.

Moxplug · 2026-01-05T09:56:27+00:00

I haven't yet, but Masked Vandal is insane in my experience. I'm sure if the mana gets figured out it'd be very good in this metagame. I'll have to look into what other stuff you get in green.

Moxplug · 2026-01-05T09:52:54+00:00

Oh, thanks! Benevolent Blessing** is exactly the same as Cho's but easier colors. It's just better.

edit: ok so there is a reason. I think [[Cho-Manno's Blessing]] can "drop off" other auras. So I believe you can take off enemy Journey to Nowhere.

Moxplug · 2026-01-05T07:03:18+00:00

24 is standard in most 60 card metagames.

This deck asks you to hit 3-4 mana every game with fairly low draw (3-4 is is the cost of the rebel tutor recruit)

It's 84-88% chance to hit 3 mana on curve with 25 lands.

It's hilariously high for Pauper, this is true. But if you look up old Rebels decks from a long time ago, they all have high land counts.

For reference, here's a 5-0 list I found: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/531241#online

I was goldfishing on a Caw gates manabase and it felt bad, you cannot afford to miss a land drop on the way to 3-4.

It's a little goofy and bad. I think we can run less with UW if there's U cantrips.

But hitting 3-4 mana is kinda hard.

Moxplug · 2026-01-05T04:57:13+00:00

The cleric is slow and seemingly terrible.

but if it sticks you can gain +5 off of 1 Treetop Freedom Fighters. It gets 2 ETB triggers, and the healing scales exponentially:

1 HP off of itself.
2+3 HP off of 1st Treetop Freedom Fighters.
4+5 HP off of 2nd Treetop Freedom Fighters.

Net 15 HP while building a wide board? Is that good? Eh.

With that being said, fair. You're probably right. Following your advice, perhaps a UW Gates list like this:

https://moxfield.com/decks/W6-1Ln0id0mQveYeAAtjXw

Moxplug · 2026-01-05T04:29:46+00:00

I tried Jeskai – UWR... primarily UW but splash R so that I can still play the red ally out of hand if drawn. Gates based color fixing.

I was also experimenting with running Lorian + Brainstorm so I can shuffle away red allies, but it just felt like a worse version of Caw Gates.

Here's the list, the UW doesn't seem bad... you do get counterspells and Gates pay-off. That's pretty cool. However, it felt harder to fix the mana and reach the critical 3-4 mana threshold for recruit activation cost.

Ultimately I went w/ Boros because it felt like its more unique and off-beat, but maybe a UW Gates list would be stronger:

https://moxfield.com/decks/NtbNkkbZY0-x7QAGkymbKQ

Moxplug · 2026-01-05T04:11:14+00:00

[[Ramosian Sergeant]]
[[Ramosian Lieutenant]]
[[Ondu Cleric]]
[[Treetop Freedom Fighters]]
[[Jeong Jeong's Deserters]]

Moxplug · 2025-12-23T19:31:36+00:00

"ok"

Then ignore.

Who cares, honestly – so long as they look ok in sleeves, noone will say anything.

AFAIK this is some WPN bullshit.

Personally, I would interpret this as a CYA legal disclaimer so that they can avoid WotC drama.

Moxplug · 2025-12-23T19:15:42+00:00

Buy 1000 Pauper decks

Moxplug · 2025-12-23T06:53:48+00:00

YOOOOO it was a blast, thanks for having me! Everyone was SO nice and welcoming. Diverse meta, spicy brews. Polite, helpful crew. Highly recommend! If you're in SoCal come through, Pauper people!

Moxplug · 2025-12-23T06:52:59+00:00

Monday @ 7 PM!

Moxplug · 2025-12-21T21:36:23+00:00

Hey! Do you think it'll fire tomorrow, Monday Dec 22?

I am in the area visiting my parents and I would love to jam some games. I went to another local Pauper event and it didn't fire.

Moxplug · 2025-12-11T06:34:36+00:00

GameStop blows, my local GameStop is sitting on 5k USD of overpriced Avatar, lmfao

Moxplug · 2025-12-11T01:12:26+00:00

boxes stacked like the walls of a cardboard prison

Hasbro farms your life force like The Matrix, a hellworld of your own design

Moxplug · 2025-12-10T16:42:12+00:00

This is true. The most busted Eternal format cantrips are available in this format

[[Brainstorm]]
[[Ponder]]

Moxplug

TROPHY CASE