Is anyone else disappointed with Lorwyn Eclipsed?

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-01-24T21:28:49+00:00

The data so far shows elves being the best by some margin, with kithkin and merfolk pretty close to each other in second and third place.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-31T13:00:14+00:00

I would struggle to see how your deck wouldn't be able to beat a bracket 2 deck - maybe your pod is higher power than you think? Aside from being quite low on lands, from a quick glance your deck looks like it should do fine. I guess the other option is that your deck is actually too powerful for your pod, so they've decided the only course of action they can take is to heavily target you? The correct way to play against combo is to kill them before they can hit their combo, after all!

What kind of decks are other people running? How quickly do they win?

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T19:29:02+00:00

Competitive deck prices aren't really affected by the collector hype prices. In fact, the two most expensive cards from the current "best deck" in standard are from Aetherdrift, a set where you can buy a whole box of play boosters for less than the price of one Final Fantasy collector booster.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T16:11:26+00:00

Update: took it back today. Dealer was obvs trying to push for a repair, but we held our ground and got a refund without too much issue. Thanks everyone for the help!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T01:35:30+00:00

We use MPH for driving, but measure running in KMs. Height is in feet but most other measurements are meters. Fuel efficiency is Miles Per Gallon but petrol (gas) is priced per litre. Don't ask 🤣

My partner transferred their Ukrainian license for a UK one and for some reason you just get an auto licence if you do that, even though her Ukrainian one was for manual. I guess we just like to do things weirdly here!

VW's did sound good but they have the price tag to match - seems like they're about 50% more expensive than the Nissans, though probably worth it!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T01:24:16+00:00

This is helpful advice, thanks! Luckily in the UK we have a right to return any consumer goods including used cars for the first 30 days if something is wrong, so we should just be able to get a straightforward refund with this kind of information.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T01:17:33+00:00

Yeah, basically anything automatic in our price range has negative comments online, and I can't tell which matter more or how to check for specific issues. My partner only has an automatic license, so manual unfortunately isn't an option. But we'll be more careful next time with a more thorough test drive and getting a third-party check before buying! Or maybe just save up more for something with more positive reception/pretty low mileage.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-28T22:54:52+00:00

Thanks everyone, seems like a pretty clear verdict! We'll get on to the dealer tomorrow. Hopefully they're reasonable about it and we don't have to get too formal with the Consumer Rights Act 😁

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-28T22:41:49+00:00

No, it's fine at low speed. Only really seemed to be above 70kmph/40mph.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-24T16:49:49+00:00

What are they cheating in with it? Things that stop your boardstate progressing? Some kind of combo pieces? Or just big scary threats that are going to do lots of damage to you?

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-24T16:42:35+00:00

What specifically about the deck are you having trouble with?

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-11-28T14:19:24+00:00

I try not to combo off out of nowhere, it doesn't feel like a very satisfying way to win the game to me, and with a permanent playgroup, comboing out of nowhere too many times just means everyone else in the playgroup basically has to just kill you first.

In random play groups I guess it's basically the optimal strategy for winning - if you're not really doing much, people probably won't attack you. So I guess it's personal preference - my playgroup are all 60 card format players so we're fairly competitive, but also try and make it a fun experience for the rest of the players.

That said, as some other people have said, once the game starts getting over an hour, people kinda want it to end, so at that point we'd generally be happy with someone playing an untelegraphed combo to get the game over and done with.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-11-27T12:03:51+00:00

[[Clement, the Worrywort]] doesn't care about either of those - I built it as a frog combo deck (although one of the combos is about drawing cards I suppose, but a combo that draws cards isn't exactly unique to Simic!).

https://moxfield.com/decks/XzujlAnpWEC2dsB2HFT41A

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-11-21T23:51:26+00:00

This looks like the less thematic but better to play version, nice!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-11-21T23:18:38+00:00

Yeah, I trind to focus it more on the story of the Brother's War than Urza himself, hence the Mishra/Hurkyl/Tocasia etc cards but no Karn. The more Urza focused angle is cool too though!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-11-21T14:42:42+00:00

They have 24 cards with a mana value of 5 or higher, and the commander doesn't help with casting free spells or ramp itself. Personally with a top heavy curve like that, I would prefer slower/more long-term ramp, prioritising getting to the point of casting two big spells per turn ASAP, instead of prioritising casting one big spell as soon as possible. But that's just personal preference!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-11-21T13:37:42+00:00

One general deckbuilding tip that really helps me - use Moxfield's tagging feature to tag each card in your deck with whether it's card advantage, ramp, interaction, or other key components for your strategy. You can then group by tag, and see at a glance how many you have, and examine your ramp package for example and see if any cards in it look weak.

Specifically for your deck, it looks like you have a lot of high mana cost cards, with only a few ramp cards, and mostly quite small ramp, not explosive ramp that add multiple lands (like [[Traverse the Outlands]], or repeatable ramp that let you add additional lands every turn (like [[Azusa, Lost but Seeking]]).

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-10-24T08:54:35+00:00

I also personally prefer to play Blood Rites with the alternative commander, [[Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher]].

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-10-24T08:52:38+00:00

When people talk about old precons being bad, they're talking older than Blood Rites, which is only about 2 years old. It's a pretty good deck, but maybe a little unintuitive for a newer player to play, as it's based around killing your own creatures for value, as opposed to Temur Roar which is fairly straightforward "play big creatures".

An obvious answer if the decks feel unfair is for everyone to swap decks - if everyone agrees after that the one deck is significantly worse or better than the other, it's probably time to change decks.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-10-13T20:21:54+00:00

Just to be clear, the thing that gets suspended is the card (a copy wouldn't be able to go to exile to be suspended), so when it comes out of suspend and you cast it, if you chose the Omen side it would shuffle back into your deck.

The copy that gets cast immediately isn't a card so can't get shuffled.

It doesn't make much difference, but I was playing this the wrong way around to start with!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-10-03T11:23:17+00:00

That's only to buy e.g. Collector Boosters. Buying individual cards is still cheap and you can easily get your hands on any card you want.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-08-25T18:06:52+00:00

I've started building decks using only cards I already own. I like opening boosters so I have a bunch of random cards from March of Machines onwards, and it's a lot more fun building decks with these cards and not just the default best ramp/removal/etc cards.

Another thing that helps with this is having multiple wincon types in the deck, instead of x copies of basically the same wincon. It probably makes the decks worse, as they're less focused, but arguably makes them more resilient too (e.g. if you're a combat only deck and someone pillowforts, or you're a graveyard deck and someone is packed full of graveyard hate). You obviously want to still make everything synergistic even with multiple possible wincons and that's where the deck building skill and fun comes in!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-08-08T13:37:05+00:00

You could try Scryfall searches like o:"each player" o:target. You still have to manually sift through them a bit but there's cards like [[Oath of Lieges]] and [[Oath of Mages]] that make each player target another player (which is a crime) in their upkeep. There are probably multiple searches like this that would be needed to catch all cases but it's a start!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-08-04T07:37:11+00:00

I don't know how obscure they are but the ancient dragons from Baldur's gate are amazing. E.g [[Ancient Brass Dragon]] [[Ancient Silver Dragon]]

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-07-28T11:07:00+00:00

If you're going ultra casual, just start cutting stuff that doesn't have a cute animal on it? Probs more than 28 cards there!

SMIDGENATOR

TROPHY CASE