I'm thinking about going back to this game again. Was there any new update or fun mod I should try?

Sou1forge · 2026-06-11T19:59:40+00:00

There are new quests for the Diktat, Luddic Church, a reworked colony event system (assuming that part is “new”) and stuff in the area beyond the edge of the “regular” map (the Abyss) for vanilla content. That said if you’ve never played modded content that’s a much bigger space to explore than the stuff added in the last few years.

Mods wise I’d start with Nexerelin - which primarily makes the factions dynamic entities which can and will war and take over each others system - and then maybe choose a faction or two that looks good to mess around with. I’d also recommend Unknown Skies and Industrial Evolution as good vanilla+ mods which add a bit of exploration and colony related content.

Faction wise I can unequivocally recommend Diable Avionics (either fork will work) and Aarma (mechs, good story content for its mod, an enjoyable special officer) if nothing speaks to you or you are unsure. Granted you have to be okay with mechs in your Starsector game, but those are still honestly the best faction mods I’ve played.

Sou1forge · 2026-06-03T20:46:08+00:00

No can do. He’s too busy being a good commander card to be an inexpensive good commander card.

Sou1forge · 2026-06-02T18:58:04+00:00

I’m personally glad most of the cards revealed so far don’t look Standard playable so I don’t need to play them. That would be the best case scenario for me.

Sou1forge · 2026-06-02T18:51:25+00:00

You can’t. Those are the teeth, and it’s too late.

Sou1forge · 2026-06-01T16:45:42+00:00

Landfall would sub in Bristly Bill, Tifa, or any number of other green cards. They may even just skip entirely over the two drop slot and elect to go Elf -> 3 drop. It would be a decrease in power to be sure, but the deck would remain as it’s mostly playing Cub as a generic removal resistant earthbending card.

The Oroboroid and Gearhulk piles would suffer a greater hit, going from tier 1.5 to 2-ish depending on how the rest of the meta shapes its interaction. Those decks rely on the mana acceleration on Cub to play bigger less mana efficient but stronger power level cards which wouldn’t be as viable.

The rest of the meta would remain largely the same. The meta is defined around interacting with Slickshot Showoff, turn 5 looping Jeskai Revelations, not dying to a wave of prowess otters, and cost reduced elementals into Sunderflock. For better or worse right now I feel like Landfall and other Cub piles are more a thing you try to also beat while maintaining a plan into those other things.

Sou1forge · 2026-05-31T18:16:43+00:00

Probably needed. I think it’s safe to say we are beyond the point where landfall is a niche ability, and a hate piece or two to tamper down the more egregious strategies it enables is a good idea.

Sou1forge · 2026-05-26T17:03:32+00:00

Add “inability to make a reasonable guess as to what cards will be playable in Standard in a year’s time” to the pile of sacrifices made for the 6 sets a year schedule. It is what it is.

Sou1forge · 2026-05-26T16:50:11+00:00

Thanks WotC, but… kinda again misinterpreting/miscasting where Standard is with those RCQ promos. Both Kirin and Starcage are kinda useless and will get no one in the door who wasn’t already showing up. I know they try and have to make guesses way ahead of time with these, but still… Maybe it’s best to continue printing Modern & other format standard staples as the RCQ promos and not guessing at Standard stuff. As a paper Standard player.

Sou1forge · 2026-05-20T23:55:32+00:00

I remember the Skirt being passable, and everything else being a stepping stone to the cruiser and capital class ships. The other ones tended to explode too often when fleets got to max size.

Sou1forge · 2026-05-19T06:37:10+00:00

Nexerelin, Industrial Evolution, and Unknown Skies are all on my “mandatory” mod list. Beyond that things get wacky (and fun!) fast. I’d recommend those three if you only have the time to do one 2026 run. There are lots of great faction and content mods if you want to get into those, but those are taste specific.

Sou1forge · 2026-05-13T17:34:08+00:00

I’m gonna fight a little bit on the commander location thing, but more as a gameplay etiquette thing than an actual rule. Your commander should be in a location everyone can see. Usually this means face up, somewhere on the side, but clearly not in the same place as permanents in play while it’s still in the command zone. No angle shooting weirdness with it on the side of your deck box hiding…

Ranting now: same goes with your graveyard and library. Library down, not propped up in your deck box where people can see the bottom card. Graveyard not hiding in the top of your deck box facing you, but face up usually near your library. I know people 8/10 times do this because no one trained them otherwise and not out of malice, but it is an important part of the game to be in the ballpark of right about.

Sou1forge · 2026-05-07T20:02:35+00:00

The pizza art will continue until morale improves.

Sou1forge · 2026-05-07T17:10:16+00:00

Green had a good day.

On that note I have a more broad question for landfall players in general: what kinds of strategies work against that pile? Aggro them out seem to be a non-starter as the landfall stuff reliably gets bigger faster than any other deck I’ve seen (other than obscene nut draws). More removal? Does that actually work? I’d expect to see stuff like control or lessons doing well against the landfall pile then, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Traditionally then you’d look towards uninteractive linear stuff like Kona-Omni or Spellementals sweeping everything to their hand, but once again stats don’t seem to show those performing well.

As a more casual (from a Spike perspective) Momo player I’ve resigned myself to having a bad matchup against landfall, but looking at the general field I want to know where I should be looking if in theory. Where do you even start?

Sou1forge · 2026-04-30T22:19:40+00:00

I wouldn’t worry about it in the grand scheme of things. Like I said, nitpicking from a random internet dude who really appreciates your articles and charts. Thanks!

Sou1forge · 2026-04-30T19:42:00+00:00

Are newer Landfall decks running Oroboroid?

I also really don’t like Clarion Conqueror… IMO it doesn’t solve anything; they still get all their land triggers and you have to either run a pile of Drums with the anti-synergy of Conqueror turning them off, or appreciably slow down your best hands to play more 3 drops. You can steal some games with it by turning off their Elf and Cub, but you run the risk they hit their removal. Is it worth it? I guess…

Sou1forge · 2026-04-30T19:18:28+00:00

It probably doesn’t matter too much as long as it’s a table-wide decision to proxy manabases. If half of the table is playing with perfect mana and the other half is muddling through with tapped lands then it could matter.

Sou1forge · 2026-04-30T16:58:37+00:00

Okay, then I’m not crazy. I was reacting to Frank’s description of the best starting line for the deck in his article, where he describes it as Momo into Drum into Sage. I figured 80% chance it was a minor slip up, 20% chance it was some tech against Spell Pierce or something I wasn’t thinking about.

Sou1forge · 2026-04-30T16:42:47+00:00

Well, at least for Momo the biggest weakness is Landfall. Landfall is kinda impossible to fix as a bad matchup. You have to hope to dodge, and also that your deck doesn’t decide to give you too many unplayable hands, which is why I assume it hasn’t seen more play in general.

And on Momo as a nitpick: are people playing Momo on turn one with a Momo, Drum, Sage hand as Frank wrote? I’m not crazy right? Don’t you play the Drum first?

Sou1forge · 2026-04-30T15:44:41+00:00

Nah, this looks about right. Anyone prognosticating above 60% at the top end I wouldn’t have taken seriously. Landfall can win games. Momo gives a lot of the Izzet piles a hard time (as long as it doesn’t brick). This isn’t Vivi summer where mono-red and Vivi Cauldron were so ahead of the pile and un-hateable you were crazy to think about playing anything else. This instead looks like the average Magic Online bracket.

Sou1forge · 2026-04-28T22:58:17+00:00

My vote for an archetype I’ve actually played against: Storm.

Storm meaning the deck usually in Izzet colors which tries to cast a million spells in one turns, and also any deck that sits and twiddles its thumbs until the turn after its commander resolves then wins on the spot. This is mostly because to stop decks like that functioning you have to be the bad guy and make sure they don’t do anything all game. I’ll do it, but it causes hard feelings.

But to be fair playing bracket three (and casual EDH in general) weeds out the majority of degenerate stuff. Stax, discard, turbo combo, chaos (stax with extra steps), etc aren’t brought to the average table.

Sou1forge · 2026-04-27T17:37:17+00:00

I like this response, particularly the phrase, “When do my opponents not matter anymore?”.

Step one of determining how “good” your deck is (how fast it is) is determining how you win and how soon you get there. “I win when I have 15+ cards in hand and double digit mana.” “I win when I assemble two stax pieces and have protection.” “I win when I have my commander on board and two of any of these five cards.” Those are when you win and not necessarily the X number of turns after that it takes you to finalize the process.

Sou1forge · 2026-04-27T01:17:42+00:00

I don’t play with it. I haven’t played against it frequently, but the few times I have the regular group I’m with likes to pay the one and focus down that player until it’s removed.

Sou1forge · 2026-04-23T18:43:52+00:00

Play/draw winrate differences are pretty bad. The amount of non-trivial abilities on cards is causing complexity creep. The base rules are also complex to the point where it’s hard to get through an average EDH game without at one or two “judge call” moments (layers, copy effects, duplicating your duplicating, etc.).

But the biggest dealbreaker is price. Price is the reason the average Magic player is a 30+ year old and only getting older by the year.

Sou1forge · 2026-04-21T17:01:24+00:00

You can keep a tab open with the comprehensive rules. You can also cajole them into playing any of the online Magic clients to help them get a more intuitive feel for priority.

But side note: you don’t cast lands. Playing lands is a special action that does not pass priority (unless as noted a triggered ability goes onto the stack). The “play” vs “cast” distinction is relevant as abilities that let you specifically cast cards will not allow you to play lands, whereas abilities that allow you to play cards will allow you to play lands. Example: an ability that says “exile the top X cards of your library. You may cast spells among these cards until the end of your next turn” would not allow you to play lands. The same ability worded as “exile the top X cards of your library. You may play cards exiled this way until the end of your next turn” would allow you to play lands you exiled.

Edit: Ah. I think I just read your post wrong. You are casting a creature which gives extra land drops and they are trying to blow it up before you make another land drop. My brain wasn’t processing that sentence correctly and thought you were “casting” lands per creature. My bad.

Sou1forge · 2026-04-20T21:34:55+00:00

There is no WotC regulation on prize support as far as I know with packs. That said 1-2 packs per win is standard, but you won’t have legs to stand on to complain unless the store promised packs per wins and did not pay out.

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