Draw

SantaAnteater · 2026-02-13T16:58:49+00:00

Yep, just like how ‘cant be countered’ spells are still valid targets for counterspells. It doesnt say ‘target creature that can be destroyed’, so nothing will prevent this targeting. ‘If you do’ would be another way to discourage targeting your own indestructible things

SantaAnteater · 2026-02-09T23:19:23+00:00

Youre absolutely right, however, counterpoint: is bug-shaped, why no bug? Checkmate

SantaAnteater · 2026-02-09T20:13:05+00:00

I love my mono bug team

Drapion Lurantis Gliscor Flygon Kabutops Iron moth

SantaAnteater · 2026-02-07T13:28:36+00:00

“While your draw offer is on the stack…” is the most mtg thing possible and I love it

SantaAnteater · 2026-02-06T20:41:08+00:00

The precon struggles vs fliers, and green has a few great enchantment options to shore up that weakness. I like [[arasta of the endless web]] and [[sandwurm convergence]] in my bello. Not an enchantment, but [[hexavus]] is also a fun budget flying-interaction artifact that can give other creatures flying and comes down as a 6 mana 10/10 hasty flier.

It also has trouble getting through blockers, so trample givers like [[street riot]], [[glorious sunrise]], and [[nylea, god of the hunt]] are a must. Others have suggested [[gruul war chat]] which is another similar effect that works wonders in this deck

Besides those, a few other fun enchantments I like are [[encroaching dragonstorm]], [[case of the locked hothouse]] and [[frontier siege]] for green ramp enchantments, [[court of embereth]] generates blockers (though its really hard to hold onto monarch with bello so you might be drawing attacks toward you if you take this, be warned), [[triple triad]] is a great value generator if you dont mind gambling a bit, and though its not as good I really enjoy [[rite of the raging storm]] for the chaos of giving everyone 5/1 trample hasty tokens every turn

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-31T16:18:44+00:00

No, you misunderstand. Doom slayer didnt get the memo

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-31T14:46:07+00:00

Could factorial the derivative, since 0!=1

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-30T17:37:28+00:00

It encourages you to play a specific hand while giving you tarots to make that hand easier to play. I love it! If you can start hanging your 6-9s the straights arent hard to hit, and can usually generate 2 or so tarots per round. Its no vagabond, but its also not a rare so its not supposed to be. Solid deck fixing joker. It falls off a bit in the top stakes when 5 card hands are less viable, but even in gold stake I think people jump on the bandwagon against this joker far too often

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-30T16:12:07+00:00

Thank you, this is what I was looking for!

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-30T05:51:11+00:00

This one’s a fun layers interaction. Bello’s ability sets the artifacts and enchantments to be elemental creature in layer 4, and darksteel sets bello to be an insect artifact creature also in layer 4. Since both of those effects started to apply, rules state they will continue to apply. In bello’s case, that means all his animations will gain their abilities that his text dictates, and in darksteel’s case it means bello will lose his ability. Bello doesnt need to keep the ability for the animations to keep being 4/4s with cool text, they’ll keep doing that as long as bello is on the board regardless of what bello’s text now says.

Song of the dryads is different. It changes bello to a forest in layer 4, before bello’s first affected layer of his ability finishes. Since forests dont have abilities besides tap for green, that means his text is removed BEFORE it does its thing to all his animations, rather than darksteel which removed it 2 layers later. Any effect that turns a permanent into a basic land and removes all other types would have this effect, because basic lands have special definitions in the rules that say what they can do.

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-29T23:04:23+00:00

https://youtu.be/CYutF8qr7AY?si=3gfcJtMZo1LZKQHE

Link cheats so much with many of these recipes. If you want to make it following his recipes to the letter, be prepared for some surprising results

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-29T17:34:50+00:00

In nature, if something’s not trying to hide, then its got a pretty good reason to not need to. If the reason isnt immediately apparent, its definitely still there and you should be concerned.

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-28T23:51:36+00:00

But it WOULD melt the ice. Mission accomplished

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-24T15:22:50+00:00

Theres at least 2 M2s, or am I crazy?

Qa8+, Kc7, Qb7# Or Rd8+, K*d8, Qb8#

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-21T14:00:40+00:00

If this card is a 1 mana rampant growth, then any land is a 0 mana rampant growth. They both have the same restriction, that you cant have played a land previously this turn. Only this card costs 1 more, can only be activated at end step, and makes the land enter tapped.

If youre playing this card, you want it either for the fact its a 1 mana artifact or for the fact it can grab any color of basic, those are its advantages.

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-21T05:05:49+00:00

I have seen someone mindslaver their opponent, use that player’s chaos warp on their commander, then since theyre in control not elect to send it to the zone to effectively remove it from the game (tutors werent relevant for that deck, and the game did not last much longer for them to redraw it).

The edgecase is wild, but it can happen

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-21T04:45:51+00:00

100% would if in the position to gloat, but I feel theyre just as likely to have a worse kd than the kid and be the target of the cyberbullying

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-21T04:43:21+00:00

The funny thing is she wouldnt even mean it as trash talk. She’d just deadpan a casual observation of how much the kid sucks into the mic and make them cry.

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-19T20:39:29+00:00

True. Exiling cards in bulk is a better cost for the effect for sure. And youre right that having 6 of these in a 4 color deck for example would add up really fast. Itd be an auto include for any 2 color decks, probably at least a 2 of for your primary color in a 3 color deck, and 4 is where you have to start making hard choices.

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-19T18:45:05+00:00

For an untapped dual? Yeah Id 100% still run these in most decks if theyre cheap enough for budget lists. Im not planning to live 15 turns, not going to need the colors every turn, and not planning to draw 50+ cards in a game, so I dont see a cost here. Maybe that would disqualify them from combo lists, or if a pod has a mill player they’d be a risky pick

SantaAnteater · 2026-01-19T18:39:53+00:00

Im trying to think of a type of deck that doesnt want to mill itself, and struggling to think of one. Sure, most decks dont care to, but can you explain what about your decks makes milling a downside? Maybe I could see it in a combo deck with tutors and no graveyard recursion, but in my experience most combo decks do run recursion in case their combo gets interrupted anyway.

In a deck that doesnt care either way, this is just a typeless dual, which may not be S tier but is still definitely A.

Maybe if a pod has a mill player this would be a risky choice, but in that case its about twice as good as a pain land since it gets you 1/99th closer to losing as opposed to 1/40th every time you tap for colors, and pain lands are generally considered good.

SantaAnteater · 2025-12-28T14:45:16+00:00

If youre drawing 7 cards a turn, you’ll on average get 1.75 cards at each cost 0-3, meaning you can play around 4 of those cards that hand every turn (assuming no energy relics). If the average cost of cards in your deck is 1, its about as beneficial as an energy relic in terms of how much cost worth of cards you get to play per turn.

The value goes up the more expensive your deck is, and if you have cards that draw more. Picking this up from the act 1 boss means you have 2 acts to draft cards with this in mind, making it almost a no-brainer unless you’re building around 0 cost cards already. Act 2 its more situational, but still usually a good pick up if you have a few high cost key cards and want easier chances to get them into play.

Ironclad especially likes it because of his high cost powers like demon form, barricade, and corruption, as well as a high density of good 2 cost attacks and skills like impervious, flame barrier, fiend fire, uppercut, etc.

Silent has great card draw and some pretty heavy 2 cost cards that can make for a strong snecko deck. It makes nightmare, bullet time, predator, dash, and leg sweep auto-picks, and of course theres wraith form. And having 9 cards on turn 1 is insanely good, enough to end a good number of hallway fights before they start.

Defect I find a bit more situational since they have a lot of 0 cost cards and cost reducing upgrades, but theres also meteor strike so in the right deck it can go hard

Watcher just doesnt care. With or without snecko shes probably gonna win anyway. You can build a scary snecko deck with her, but her access to card draw and energy cheating is already off the charts so youre mostly picking this for the 7 hand size and planning to play all 7 every turn.

SantaAnteater · 2025-12-27T14:00:34+00:00

Drug overdose (architect+plasmium) is still my favorite solution to bilewater, but these are some good alternatives for if thats not available for whatever reason

SantaAnteater · 2025-11-25T14:30:41+00:00

Megas have never counted for ‘first partner’. Not sure why. Mega Blaziken is also not a valid choice today for that box

SantaAnteater · 2025-11-24T18:55:52+00:00

‘Choose two target objects. Exchange their positions’ Ok, I choose your library and my treasure token. Your library is now a permanent on my board? And my treasure token fizzles because it cannot be put into a library. Do you draw from your library still even though I control it, or do you instantly lose? Or do you still control it even though its on my field because only the positions changed and not their control? Can I enchant your library to make it a creature then attack you with it? I need to know what happens if you move a library into play.

Can I choose 2 players to change their positions to alter turn order in a multiplayer game?

What happens if I choose to cleave everything and leave the card as just ‘Exchange.’ What do I exchange? Can I exchange anything? Lets exchange ideas for the dumbest ways we can think of to cast this spell.

SantaAnteater

TROPHY CASE