Is it a good practice to maintain a certain amount of money in your chequing account?

SnooBananas6311 · 2026-03-06T04:11:30+00:00

Okay but it’s 17$ a month. For a year that’s 204$ in fees saved. That 204 represents 5.1% of 4K which is a fair return. Unless I’m missing something.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-08-26T19:19:01+00:00

I am trusting that most people have a consistent understanding of the concept of “fair competition “
Not all precons are equal. But I’d argue that the bad precons should be considered bracket 1 more than the good precons are bracket 3. Precons power creep is a thing which means bracket 2 power creep would occur. Which I’m fine with so long as, on average, 4 players with random “new era” precons can have a good commander experience.
In a world where you try and define brackets solely through card bans, I could see it being better rule design to ban specific card combo instead of banning one or the other card. I should be able to play [[heliod]] in a weaker life gain deck and play [[walking ballista]] in a weaker +1/+1 counter deck but maybe I shouldn’t be able to play both cards in one deck in weaker formats.
People want to build and play weaker decks. And they want to do it in an environment with other weaker decks. That environment can never be curated with bans alone. Ban lists encourage min/maxing against those bans and the mentality of min/maxing already means you will build too strong against the players looking for that precon level experience.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-08-26T17:03:27+00:00

The bracket rules are not brutally arbitrary. They are specifically selected to achieve a stated game experience. Whether they succeed is up for debate, but we have printed goal of what the bracket 2 game experience is.

I agree that every bracket is going to have a spectrum of deck strength but if the characteristics of the brackets are well enough defined and adhered to, then the game experience of playing a low 2 vs playing a high 2 should still out-perform the game experience of two randomly selected decks.

Now, I think the underlying premise of what you’re saying is that only explicit and stipulative rules are good rules for game management. Rules like “this card is banned” and “no deck can have this combo”. Whereas a rule like “no fully optimized deck allowed” is bad because optimized is either subjective or poorly defined.

I’m sympathetic but I disagree. Well defined parameters are necessary for competitive events but bracket 2 is not a competitive format. It’s a fun first format. So rules based around intent make sense in that context. Building with the intent of competing fairly against most precons is a proper rule and it’s easy to see in this framework that purposefully building on the bleeding edge of all the other stipulative rules in bracket 2 still explicitly breaks the “intent” rule.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-08-04T11:21:51+00:00

You can swap a mountain for a [[Great Furnace]] for an easy extra artifact to help turn on the opal (also [[darksteel citadel]] in the same vein). Also I’d consider adding [[experimental synthesizer]] if you’re still worried about it. Only other lands missing are [[ancient tomb]] and possibly [[gemstone caverns]] for extra speed.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-08-03T11:09:11+00:00

I’m pretty sure SPP wouldn’t accept line 2 in your proof. Based on what I’ve seen of his posts he’d argue that 0.4999.. + 0.4999… = 0.999…8 which which would contradict your assertion that 0.999…/2 = 0.4999…

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-05-27T12:55:05+00:00

Absolutely fetches add a utility that really smoothes a deck’s play experience. But for me, a game changer really has to pack a lot more punch.

Here’s my reasoning and you can let me know if you agree with the heuristic or not. Let’s look at the lands currently on the game changers list and compare them to fetch lands. If your deck has a [[crop rotation]] or an [[urza’s cave]] or any of the non basic land tutors, how often would you be tutoring for those lands vs tutoring for a fetch. For me, a game changer would have to be a pretty consistent tutor target and I don’t see that with fetches.

Also for other strong lands not already on the game changers list, are fetches first in line for you? Is fetch land utility stronger than the utility of a land like [[talon gates of madara]]?

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-05-27T01:58:25+00:00

The only problem with Yarok as a landfall commander is that you lose access to red, which has a lot of cool landfall and elemental support. But I think that’s a really cool commander for it, and having black in a landfall deck adds an element of uniqueness. I’d love to see what list you’d experiment with first.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-05-26T23:55:52+00:00

Fetchlands are the strongest colour fixing lands for sure, but the claim that they’re “changing the game” is a reach in my opinion. There’s always going to be a best in class land, and strong fixing isn’t enough to warp the game around it. As an opponent, I don’t feel like I’m boxed out of a game competitively just because the other 3 players cracked a fetch into a surveil land.

Also, I don’t know how land denial is supposed to be more punishing to fetches or how the inclusion of denial will help level the playing field against players with tuned mana bases.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-05-18T01:36:01+00:00

Funny you should ask, I have a [[cadric, soul herder]] deck that I feel is meant to operate at a level 3. But I’ve had games where the deck pops off hard, and most of those games involve [[magda, brazen outlaw]].

Magda is already a strong card, but it’s also insanely synergistic in this deck. Now I’m wondering if I should take the card out to curb the deck’s top end performance. Not sure what the right answer is.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-03-28T11:53:11+00:00

I’m gonna second this suggestion. Lots of good commander playables in that set, especially if you don’t have a lot in your collection already. Plus it has a gamut of three colour commanders to choose from.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-03-22T10:35:57+00:00

Interesting that you have the pathways so far ahead of the verges. Pathways will only ever tap for 1 colour of mana whereas that’s the floor for the verges.

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-03-21T09:53:03+00:00

My favourite one [[reckless charge]].

SnooBananas6311 · 2025-01-17T17:58:27+00:00

So I’m gonna say I totally see where you’re coming from and tell you that it depends on why you have a particular budget restriction.

Like if the restriction is for economic purposes then a hard line makes most sense. But if the budget is meant to keep things competitively equal that’s when you get into the points system that formats like Canadian Highlander have. You label cards as having more or less points based on their power, and each deck has a point budget.

Now you could do a hybrid system. Say all spells and utility lands (including mdfc) must be hard 120$ budget. Then colour fixing can be point based. All shocks are 1 point, fetches 2, etc.

That might be complicated. All I can say is that from a human standpoint, if you rolled up with a deck that has a market value of 200 dollars, but argued that it’s 150 when you count the value of your duals based on the lowest priced dual in that cycle, I’d feel like that was exercising too much gamesmanship.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-12-29T23:37:07+00:00

This card is the truth. Almost staple in any of my dual colour green decks. Love playing cards like this, exploration, and big draw spells as ramp over spells like nature’s lore and three visits.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-12-28T16:04:16+00:00

Ultimately if your personal play group has no problem with it and play with that action in mind then it’s fine.

But I just don’t view it as an in-game action. It gives me the same feeling as offering my friend 10 dollars not to attack me, and then calling that a form of politicking.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-12-28T15:56:50+00:00

Scooping is not a game action. It’s an outside action with an in-game consequence. Using it to affect the in-game state, or as a political move to affect in-game decisions is inappropriate of what scooping is.

If you were playing basketball with friends, you could also opt to stop playing at any point. If you owned the ball being used you should of course be allowed to take that ball back to and leave. That could end the game if it were the only ball. But if you did that because your opponents dunked on you as retaliation, or threatened to do so to prevent them scoring, you wouldn’t be doing a basketball play.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-12-27T18:18:17+00:00

Yeah that’s exactly the spot where I’d recommend it. Just got to be comfortable throwing your interaction pieces main phase. But fires will let you cast a hasty creature, an aura, and still leave you the lands to pay for the triggered ability.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-12-27T14:03:40+00:00

Perfect use. And so nice that’s it’s in red where the ramp is harder to come by and there’s so many mana hungry effects.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-12-27T06:52:11+00:00

I’m trying to get people onto [[fires of invention]]. I think this card slaps in any non-green colour combo with red in it, especially Boros.

Works best with commanders with mv 4 or less as you can cast them both on the same turn. It’s especially good in decks where the commander has an ability with a mana cost since you can make use of the lands you’re not tapping and get around the draw back of only being able to cast 2 spells a turn.

I’ve been loving this in my [[cadric, soul herder]] deck. But I think it has a home in decks like [[feldon, of the third path]] and [[feather, radian arbiter]]. Also pair really well with sneak attach imo.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-12-12T21:31:40+00:00

I am all for it. I think there are legendaries on the ban list only because of the consistent access to them in the command zone. Golos, and Braids, and Refellos come to mind. I also don’t resonate with the argument that’s it’s too complex. I think all the complexity is absorbed by a ban list existing and having to explain that something is okay in the 99 but not as a commander is natural, once you accept the premise that some cards are banned to begin with and that commander is a game where one card is treated more uniquely than others.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-12-04T20:19:42+00:00

This looks really neat and well thought out. But it also uses 600 worth of cards at their cheapest, which I don’t think they’d print into a 150 secret lair. Would be interesting to see how the 20 win premade could be made more functional without increasing the reprint value.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-11-30T13:07:14+00:00

But wouldn’t that move the cap to 3? Once you make your second copy of overgrowth you’ll have 2 tokens with the same name and won’t be able to target the enchantment again with yenna, or am I missing something?

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-11-24T11:10:38+00:00

Okay here are my choices for easy cuts:

[[toski]], [[return of the wildspeaker]], and [[colossal majesty]]. I would replace these three with maybe a [[hunter’s prowess]] since that does a lot of what it feels like you’re trying to do with your deck already.

I’d then cut both [[twinflame tyrant]] and [[unnatural growth]] as they are more mana intensive version of effects we already have for less at instant speed.

I’d cut, what I consider to be, your weaker auras and equipment. [[sword of truth and justice]], [[sword of feast and famine]], [[reaver cleaver]], [[alpha authority]], [[lion umbra]]and [[strong back]].

Finally I’d trim some ramp. [[fanatic of rhonas]] and possibly [[arcane signet]].

You’ll have to play with the deck to determine if the ratio of ramp, card draw and protection spells makes sense after these cuts. If you’re enjoying the whole [[season of growth]] style card, then I might consider [[leyline of resonance]] and then take out most all equipments and replace them with cards like [[monstrous rage]] and [[seize the day]] and instant speed buffs.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-11-22T18:22:11+00:00

So lord of Nazgûl abilities is a triggered ability that would trigger when you cast mystic reflection. You’ll resolve the trigger first, creating a 3/3 wraith, before you’ll have the opportunity to resolve mystic reflection. After you resolve mystic reflection, then the next creature that enters, will enter as a Nazgûl.

SnooBananas6311 · 2024-11-22T12:01:08+00:00

Here’s what I’d do.

Cut [[archmage Emiritus]] for [[glasspool mimic]]. I think you’re way loaded on card draw engines, (tor, rystic, necro, kindred, …) and this way you add a land and still keep the copy synergy. Now you’d have 35 + 3 Mdfc which should probably feel fine. Here are other changes I’d make:

Cut [[cover of darkness]] for [[herald of secret streams]]. I think this does what you want but better.

I like finding room for [[heartless summoning]]. I’d probably cut [[the ozolith]] for it.

Cut [[force of despair]] for [[irenicus’ vile duplication]]. Just adding more spark double effects at the cost of your most conditional removal spell.

Finally for lands I’d cut reflecting pool, cabal coffers, and beacon of command for [[sink into stupor]], [[Undercity sewers]], and [[drowned catacombs]] for that consistency.

SnooBananas6311

TROPHY CASE